ACC QUESTION of WEEK : Miami-Clemson is biggest ACC regular-season game since?
The Miami Hurricanes versus the Clemson Tigers on Saturday, Oct. 10, rates as a very significant ACC game. While we don’t know how Miami will stand up to Dabo Swinney’s dynastic juggernaut, the sex appeal for this game is undeniable. The mere thought — the simple possibility — that “The U” could be BACK is intoxicating for a lot of college football fans. The possibility that Miami could announce its true return against Clemson, the ACC team which has become what the Canes were supposed to be when they joined the ACC in 2004, makes Saturday’s game that much more irresistible.
Miami-Clemson exists in the realm of hype right now. The game actually has to live up to the hype in order for it to become a treasured part of the story of ACC football. In terms of an ACC regular-season game whose stature is considerable — and which marks the last really big ACC game to deliver the goods on a national stage — the last best example I can come up with is from 2015.
The 2016 Clemson-Florida State game was notable, but Florida State had already lost multiple times heading into that contest, so even though Clemson was the eventual national champion and Florida State was the eventual Orange Bowl champion, that game didn’t register as a huge deal at the time, and it isn’t seared into the memories of ACC fans.
The 2015 Clemson-Florida State game meets the standards of a memorable ACC game whose impact reverberates even today. This is the kind of game Miami hopes to create against Clemson, with another equation-changing result in the conference at the end of four quarters in Death Valley.
The Lamar Jackson Louisville-Clemson game was hyped to a degree, and the contest was a thriller, but the subsequent implosion of Louisville football under Bobby Petrino takes away from the enormity of that specific ACC regular-season clash. It was in 2015 that a college football superpower was trying to cling to its position of prominence, but lost its grip on ACC dominance.
Florida State and Jimbo Fisher eventually ran out of steam as a program, leading to the mess we saw with Willie Taggart and are currently seeing under Mike Norvell. If FSU had beaten Clemson on the road in 2015, one wonders if that process of erosion would have unfolded to the extent it did. Florida State, in 2015, was one game behind Clemson in the ACC Atlantic standings when it went to Death Valley. Everyone knew Clemson had the better team on paper, but Florida State had successfully fended off the Tigers in previous years to maintain power in the Atlantic and in the ACC at large. Clemson had to prove it was worthy of greatness, and it had to go through the Seminoles to attain it.
When FSU shut down Deshaun Watson and the Tiger offense in the first half — gaining a 10-6 lead at halftime — it was hardly a sure bet that Clemson would finally cross the threshold. This game wasn’t brilliantly played, but it was a memorable battle, with neither side giving an inch on defense through four quarters. Clemson and Watson, though — as they did throughout the 2015 and 2016 seasons — found solutions in the midst of adversity. Clemson broke a 13-13 tie in the fourth quarter and kept the Seminoles out of the end zone in the final three quarters to earn a 23-13 win. Clemson wrested the Atlantic away from FSU.
The Tigers rose to the top of the ACC, sending the Noles on a downward trajectory.
The Clemson dynasty is roaring and purring five years later…with Miami trying to do this Saturday what Clemson did to FSU five years ago.
