By Ed McGranahan
All that inane talk about a letdown or a trap game was quickly quashed in a display both exhilarating and exhausting in Clemson’s 62-48 victory over NC State Saturday. The game resembled a prize fight featuring two big punchers going toe-to-toe for 60 minutes.
Clemson won in a decision after taking a standing nine count in the first quarter and rallied from an 11-point deficit by scoring the next six touchdowns with a combination of defiance and calm resolve.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Clemson and N.C. State continued to throw punches until they were bloodied and spent. Records fell like leaves in a stiff autumn wind. Few were spared.
Tajh Boyd, Dalton Freeman and Brandon Ford leaned their backs against the wall outside the Clemson locker room and tried to relax. The numbers were numbing. The only one that mattered to them was 10.
Officially out of the conference championship game after Florida State hammered Maryland earlier Saturday, there wasn’t much left other than the so-called state championship next week and the bowl destination. Eight Clemson teams won as many as 10 games, three during the regular season. Now make that nine and four.
Beating N.C. State wasn’t absolutely necessary to reach 10, but why wait a week when a win over South Carolina would be an 11th. Clemson (10-1, 7-1 ACC) had made this journey a year ago and couldn’t finish, derailed by N.C. State in Raleigh. This time the ticket was punched for a round trip.
“I think we’ve proved that we can consistently win, now it’s time to finish strong,” Boyd said. “We just wanted to show those guys we were ready to ball and compete.”
Which was why the other number Boyd was most proud of was 100.
A year and 20 pounds ago, Boyd probably could not have mustered the energy to carry the ball 18 times. To surpass 100 rushing yards was a testament to his pride and resolve. In this game a year ago he weighed more than 240 pounds.
“Besides the win, to get the hundred yards rushing was probably my most proud moment of the night,” said Boyd, prouder more of how it spoke to his dedication than the raw number.
Remember, this is the same guy who took his high school team to a state championship on a torn knee ligament, so nobody questions his commitment to the team.
“You want to leave your legacy at a school,” he said. “The biggest thing for us is helping this team win.”
Quicker, technically sounder and smarter, Boyd’s greatest growth may be his poise.
“When we were down by 11, it was like, let’s go out and make some plays,” he said. “It’s one of those deals that when you get down in situations, you just have to sit back and relax and realized everything is going to be fine.”
Boyd joked that this team “didn’t pull another Clemson,” the euphemism for losing a game it shouldn’t. Clemson has learned to play as a frontrunner. That wasn’t the case at N.C. State last season, nor at South Carolina.
“We just left some things out there last year,” he said. “We accomplished a lot, but we left some things out there.”
As the reality becomes clearer and talk of a BCS at-large invitation seems within their reach, the incentive to end South Carolina’s three-game win streak in the state’s biggest game also seems fitting. Boyd knows none of it happens without continuing to follow the same road map that’s brought them to 10-1 and 11th in the BCS.
“It’s going to be a lot of energy. It’s just going to be – I guess – a lot of hostility,” he said of the next game. “There are probably going to be people saying things and that nature. We just try to be the same all the time, regardless of the game, regardless of the situation. We’ve just got to get ready for it.
“It’s a big game because it stands in the way of what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of great things, but we’re not where we want to be.”
And that would be New Orleans.