Epic Clemson Win Among Best of Last 25 Years

An epic victory from Clemson’s 2016 national championship season was named among the top college football games of the last quarter century.

CBS Sports highlighted the best regular season game of every college football season since 2000.

For the 2016 campaign, CBS Sports pegged the best game as Clemson’s 42-36 win over Louisville in a top-five matchup at Death Valley on Oct. 1 of that year.

Clemson’s Marcus Edmond tackled Louisville’s James Quick 1 yard shy of a first down at the 3-yard line on fourth down with 33 seconds left in the game, as the fifth-ranked Tigers held on for a thrilling victory over the third-ranked Cardinals.

Led by quarterback Deshaun Watson, who went 20-of-31 passing for 306 yards and five touchdowns, the Tigers came out on top in the back-and-forth matchup featuring electrifying offensive plays from both teams. Clemson improved to 5-0 (2-0 ACC) and extended its home winning streak to 19, while handing Louisville (4-1, 2-1 ACC) its first loss of that season.

Louisville’s Lamar Jackson, who won the Heisman Trophy that year, passed for 295 yards and rushed for 162 yards while totaling three touchdowns against the Tigers.

“It was a great win,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said after the game. “Louisville played their hearts out. We stuck it out in the third quarter. We had the right plays.”

Here’s what CBS Sports’ Chris Hummer wrote about the 2016 Clemson-Louisville classic, which saw five ties or lead changes:

With apologies to a very famous rendition of The Game between Michigan and Ohio State — the Buckeyes won in overtime thanks to a controversial 4th-and-1 conversion — the clash between the Tigers and Cardinals was simply too electric to leave off this list.

It helps that it featured two of the best quarterbacks of the CFP era in Lamar Jackson and Deshaun Watson. The duo combined for 601 yards passing and 253 yards rushing. But the game itself lived up to every bit of the hype. Clemson led 28-10 at half only for Louisville to storm back and take a 36-28 lead with 7:52 remaining. That’s when Watson — with help from a 77-yard kickoff return from Artavis Scott — led back-to-back touchdown drives to snatch the lead back. Louisville reached Clemson’s 12-yard line with 1:19 remaining. But the Tigers held firm, stopping Louisville one-yard short of a conversion on fourth-and-12 with 33 seconds remaining.

Jackson would go on to win the Heisman Trophy. Clemson went on to win the national championship. Flip the result of this game and the Tigers, who lost to Pittsburgh later in the regular season, may never have reached the CFP.

Clemson went on to finish the 2016 season with a 14-1 record (7-1 ACC), capped off, of course, by Watson’s touchdown pass to Hunter Renfrow with one second left that sealed one of the greatest national championship games of all time – the Tigers’ 35-31 defeat of Alabama.