Last year, Clemson had the opportunity do something no team in college football has done – go 15-0.
After three quarters in the College Football Playoff Championship Game against Alabama, it looked as if Clemson was going to just that. Wayne Gallman’s one-yard run with 4:48 to play in the third quarter, gave the Tigers a 24-21 lead, a lead they carried into the fourth quarter.
But thanks to a brilliant onside-kick call from Nick Saban and a 100-yard kickoff return from Kenyan Drake, the Crimson Tide scored 24 fourth-quarter points to beat the Tigers, 45-40, ending the perfect season and the quest for the program’s second national championship.
“We played 15 games and lost the last one. We were 14-0. We were almost perfect and we let it slip out of our hands,” Clemson linebacker Ben Boulware said.
Now the Tigers, like everyone else in college football, are back at square one. They are looking up at defending National Champion Alabama and must climb that preverbal mountain again, and all the things that come along with it, to get back to where they were just seven months ago with a national championship staring them in the face.
“I will not say we went to the bottom of the mountain, but even if we would have won the game, we still would have had to start over. It isn’t any different,” quarterback Deshaun Watson said.
The difference is being the defending national champion or the runner-up.
“It’s probably easier, to be honest with you. We have a highly motivated team,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “I think it’s just the culture of our program. Regardless of whether we won 10 or won 14, it’s always about what’s next.”
So what is next for the Tigers?
Clemson will be one of the favorites to make it make to the College Football Playoffs this year, but is that enough? Is winning a second straight ACC Championship enough? Is making it to the CFB Playoffs good enough? Is just making it to the National Title Game, again, enough?
“We didn’t win the game. We finished with some regrets. We want to finish with no regrets,” Swinney said.
But to finish with no regrets, the Tigers first have to start with some. In the 49 previous times Clemson entered a fourth quarter prior to last January’s title game, the Tigers had not lost under Swinney’s direction. It also marked the first time in the program’s history it lost a game when gaining 500 or more yards.
“It is definitely motivation. We have a nice chip on our shoulder,” Boulware said.
That chip has been on Clemson’s shoulder throughout mat drills in February and during spring practice throughout March and April. Even in this summer the Tigers have not forgotten how close they were and how far they have to go in order to get back there, again.
“We have to start all the way back over. New class, new group … seniors and juniors left for the NFL. It is a whole new year,” Watson said.
In the last five years, Clemson has proven itself to be one of the best in the country, winning 56 games and posting five straight 10-win seasons. But as the 2016 season begins to rise, it has to prove it all over again.
“We’ve got to go prove it and earn it all over again with our daily commitment. We start over,” Swinney said. “New team, new chemistry, new leadership … pay the price all over again with a humble and hungry spirit.”
Last year success and the overall success of the program since 2011 have been incredibly consistent, but Swinney says this team, so far, has been the easiest to motivate. There already seems to be a sense of urgency in place.
“We are going to reload and do it all over again. It’s not that difficult,” Boulware said. “It sucks losing the last game, but you learn from it and grow from it, then you get back to work.”
And this time they want to finish with no regrets.