Five defining games that changed history for the Clemson football program
Clemson football has grown into one of the top College Football programs in the country over the leadership of Dabo Swinney.
Over the course of the last decade, the Tigers have won six ACC Championships, made five-straight CFB Playoff appearances and won two National Titles. That’s quite the amount of accolades for a program that was once an afterthought in terms of the national perspective.
As we look back at the history of the Clemson football program under Swinney, here are five defining games that brought about major change.
5. 2012 Orange Bowl loss to West Virginia
It’s the only loss on our list. But, boy, was it a big one.
Most Clemson football fans have put the 70-33 loss to West Virginia in the 2012 Orange Bowl in a deep, dark place in their mind. The Tigers were absolutely drubbed by the Mountaineers and simply couldn’t find a way to stop their explosive offense.
While no one likes to remember this game, it brought about a major change: The firing of Kevin Steele and the hiring Brent Venables as Defensive Coordinator.
Without Venables, who knows what happens to Clemson football. Do the Tigers ever ascend to new heights? Venables is the best Defensive Coordinator in the nation, so at the very least, we could expect a drop-off defensively than what we’ve seen over the course of the last decade.
4. 2011 ACC Championship victory
To get to the next game on our list, you only have to rewind the clocks a little less than a month.
Winning an ACC Championship is the new normal with Clemson football now, as the Tigers have won five-straight at the time of this writing, but the conference title picture was a much different story back in 2011.
Heading into the 2011 season, the Tigers hadn’t won a conference title in more than 20 years. Clemson fans were starving to come away with an ACC Championship and it didn’t seem all that likely when they traveled to Charlotte to take on the No. 5-ranked Virginia Tech Hokies.
There 73,675 in attendance to see the Tigers come away with an impressive 38-10 win over the Hokies- who were still in hopes of back-dooring their way into the BCS National Championship game- and locking up their first conference title in more than two decades.
3. 2008 victory over South Carolina
Dabo Swinney has said time-and-time again that he would’ve never been hired for the job had he not beaten South Carolina in 2008.
For those that don’t remember, Swinney was named the interim head coach mid-way through the 2008 season following the resignation of Tommy Bowden.
He had a 3-2 record heading into the game against South Carolina and there were certainly questions about what to do with him. The win over the Gamecocks was the tipping point that told administration to take a chance on him.
The rest as they say, is history.
2. 2012 Chick-fil-A Bowl win vs. LSU
You know this game was going to be on the list.
There is, perhaps, no better defining moment than the 25-24 win over LSU in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
LSU came into this game as a heavy favorite and many believed that the Tigers were going to blow out Clemson, but that certainly didn’t happen.
Tajh Boyd took some major shots and ended up delivering one of the most memorable moments in Clemson football history when he completed a 4th-and-16 pass to Deandre Hopkins and then led the Tigers on a game-winning drive as the seconds waned off the clock.
1. 2017 National Championship win vs. Alabama
The biggest program-defining moment in the Dabo Swinney era, in my opinion, was the first National Championship victory over Alabama.
The Tigers came into the match-up against the Crimson Tide looking to avenge a loss to them a year prior and it took every ounce of energy they had to come-from-behind and put themselves in position to win.
That’s when Deshaun Watson took over.
Watson led the Tigers on a game-winning drive that was capped off by a touchdown pass to Hunter Renfrow as the clock ticked below 10 seconds.
This is one of those games that will forever be remembered by Clemson football fans as a defining and historically-changing moment.