By Ed McGranahan.
By Ed McGranahan
Doesn’t it feel better to win as an ain’t-no-way on God’s green earth underdog?
Isn’t it a lot more fun to laugh in the face of the experts on ESPN or Fox or whatever radio talk show with an ego bigger than federal deficit.
Anybody that said they saw this coming was lying or naïve or drunk.
Nothing about Clemson’s 25-24 win in the Chick-fil-A Bowl over No. 7 LSU fit any wisp of fantasy or twist of logic.
Clemson needed to be near-perfect Saturday night and wasn’t.
Two fumbles gave LSU all the points it ordinarily needs. LSU under Les Miles was 35-1 since 2005 against non-conference opponents, 9-1 in the Georgia Dome, 2-0 in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
Tajh Boyd said two weeks ago he didn’t know anybody outside the Clemson city limits picking this team to win.
LSU, with one of the best defenses in college football, was favored by six points by the Vegas boys. We’re talking SEC royalty.
Yet on this New Year’s Eve in the Georgia Dome, Clemson was better.
Boyd was defiant at times in the face of LSU’s lethal defense. He took the game in his hands, throwing 50 passes and running 29 times, many of which weren’t by design but out of necessity.
Down by two scores in the fourth quarter, he was like Leonard Bernstein with a football instead of baton, building the game to a grand crescendo and finishing with a flourish.
Who among us will ever forget fourth down-and-16?
And won’t it be a shame if this was DeAndre Hopkins’ final game in a Clemson uniform? If it was, he probably helped elevate his stock.
Chad Morris said he written a huge part for Sammy Watkins. When Watkins’ season ended after the second play of the game, “we had to do a lot of cutting and pasting and adjusting.”
Hopkins and Brandon Ford and Adam Humphries delivered play after play, with Nuk making plays worthy of any highlight reel.
Then Chandler Catanzaro, on a stage he craves, calmly trotted onto the field and delivered the biggest kick of his career.
“In a situation when a team needs you, you’ve got to step up,” Boyd said. “There are two things you can do. Step up or back down. It’s never been in my nature or any of the guys on this team.”
In many respects, it’s what we’ve come to know from those guys. What couldn’t have been anticipated was the toughness of the offensive line and the resolve on defense. Brent Venables said he had begun to see signs of progress late in the season, especially in the South Carolina game.
LSU was limited to 219 total yards and a pass rush that was MIA for much of the season had a season-high six sacks. With a graduate assistant and some student coaches preparing the secondary, LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger was limited to 14 of 23 passes for 120 yards and a touchdown.
“I know things haven’t gone completely the way we wanted this season,” Boyd said. “We had a chance to come out here and show the country what type of team we are.”
Could it have been any better than this?
“Besides winning a national championship, I don’t think it can,” said Boyd, who also needs to make a choice before the NFL’s Jan. 15 deadline. “Not in this fashion, not on the stage it happened on and with the odds against us.”