Deshaun Watson knew the circumstances. The ACL in his left knee was gone. If he decided to play, there would be some discomfort and of course some pain. But the knee was shot. He was going to have surgery a week later anyway, so why not.

“I just wanted to finish out the year,” he said.

Watson wanted to play in last year’s game against arch rival South Carolina so bad he did not care about the pain that might be associated with playing. All he knew is that he potentially could play and there was no way he would be able to damage the knee any further than it already was.

“This is not pee wee or middle school ball, this is collegiate football,” Watson said. “I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I wanted to play.”

So he approached his mom about the situation and got her blessing first, and then he spoke with Dabo Swinney. The Clemson head coach was okay with it, but he had one stipulation – if Watson could not make plays because of the knee then he did not need to be on the field.

“I did not want to be that person that held the team back, so I just went out there and did what I could,” Watson said. “I did pretty well.”

He did unbelievable.

In one of the greatest performances in the history of the Clemson-South Carolina rivalry, Watson completed 14 of 19 passes for 269 yards and two touchdowns, while running for two more scores in the Tigers’ 35-17 victory at Death Valley.

“I’ve never seen anything like that. It was incredible,” Swinney said.

What was even more incredible was Watson’s nine-yard second-quarter run that set up his own one-yard touchdown that gave the Tigers a 21-7 lead at the time.

Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson gets past South Carolina’s T.J. Gurley and T.J. Hollman (11) for a nine-yard gain to set up his own one-yard touchdown on the next play in last year’s game at Death Valley. Clemson won the game 35-17 as Watson ran for two scores and threw for two more.

Facing a second down-and-eight from the South Carolina 10-yard line, Watson scrambled around the right side after stiff arming defensive end Bryson Allen-Williams, who brought pressure up the middle. As he got to the edge South Carolina safety T.J. Gurley came flying in to make the play, but Watson stuck his right foot in the ground and cut back inside, forcing Gurley to miss him all together as he took the ball down to the one-yard line.

“I was just in the moment. During the game, I was not thinking about my knee. I was just out there playing ball,” Watson said.

Watson scored on the next play, and from there the Tigers cruised to an easy victory – snapping Carolina’s five-game winning streak in the series.

“People are probably going to still talk about it 10 years from now. It was good to see the Clemson fans happy and very excited,” Watson said. “A lot of people come up to me and say they can go to work now smiling and brag to their Carolina co-workers and stuff like that.”

As he and Clemson get set to head to Columbia on Saturday for this year’s edition of the Palmetto Bowl, Watson can’t help but to think back to where he was at this time last year, and what he has had to overcome as the quarterback of a team that is undefeated, ranked No. 1 in the country and as one of the top two contenders to win the Heisman Trophy.

“I think about it all the time … all the hard work and dedication. Right now it does not seem like that for all the outside people that do not know what I really went through,” Watson said. “For them it seemed easy. It seemed like it came natural, but it took a lot of time, sacrifice and hard work.

“There were a lot of blood, sweat and tears just to wake up early in the morning, do rehab, go to class and then to see my teammates out there, especially in the spring, playing and I am just sitting there watching. Even in the summer I did not get any football action until fall camp. Having those nine months off was very hard for me, but hard work and dedication pays off. It’s paying off right now.”

It can pay off on Saturday with another win over the Gamecocks, which would complete Clemson’s first perfect regular season since the Tigers won the national championship in 1981.

“It is very big, especially being it is in the state,” Watson said. “You want to be the top team in the state … this one is a little extra special.”