After a 20-16 home loss to Virginia Tech, Clemson stood 4-3 with a realistic chance of missing a bowl. There were road games at FSU, Syracuse, and Duke. Resurgent South Carolina was coming to Clemson, and other than Georgia Tech, you had reason to think Clemson could lose 4 of their last 5 games.
For all the criticism Dabo Swinney gets, and he is responsible for Clemson’s ascension and now decline, his teams never quit.
They could have easily packed it in with 2 road trips against not great, but dangerous opponents in Florida State and Syracuse, and they left 2-0. Suddenly, the season expectations change.
Clemson will reach the post-season, and with arguably the worst P4 team in the country, Georgia Tech next, Clemson should be 7-3 going to a solid Duke team. If Clemson wins those games to be 6-2 in the league, could they get to Charlotte? There are too many tie-breaking scenarios, but if Wake Forest loses another game, Clemson is in the picture.
That would have seemed impossible just a few weeks ago.
What has changed?
Clemson’s staff is trusting QB Tait Reynolds. It started last week and continued this week. He accounted for more than 200 total yards and is becoming a pretty dangerous dual-threat QB. Clemson’s offense isn’t great by any stretch, but it’s now doing just enough to keep defenses honest.
With a pretty solid defense, that’s enough to beat most teams on Clemson’s schedule now.
A season that looked dead 2 weeks ago now has a bit of a spark for the Tigers.
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