Over the past decade, Clemson has only won its special Orange Britches when a championship was on the line. Whether that be a division title, a state title, a conference title, or a bowl game.
On Saturday night, on the road at Boston College, Dabo Swinney chose to break those britches out. The last time he did that without a championship on the line was back in 2015.
However, what some may not remember was back in 2008, when the Tigers were 3-4 and Swinney was still an interim coach looking for his first win, Clemson broke out the Orange Britches on the road against Boston College. The Tigers won that game, giving Swinney his first victory as a head coach.
“This is a special place to me,” Swinney said. “Forever grateful for that team that came up here 17 years ago, 3-4, with a fired staff. That team made a decision to try and finish and had a will to fight.”
That was one of the reasons Swinney chose to let his team wear the special pants on Saturday night. He wanted to honor the team that got him his first win under dire circumstances.
At the same time, with his team already having suffered three losses this season, any championship hopes the Tigers had are all but dead. They know they will get one opportunity in late November when they travel to Columbia to face the rival Gamecocks, but beyond that, nothing is certain.
Add in the fact that the O’Rourke-McFadden Trophy was on the line, a trophy Clemson has had possession of for 14 of the 15 years the two teams have been playing for it, and Swinney decided tonight was the time to do something different.
“I just wanted them to have some fun,” Swinney said. “With our season the way it is and we were playing for a trophy. We don’t wear the orange pants unless there is some type of trophy on the line.”
Swinney tried something similar a few weeks back when the team broke out the purple jerseys for its road game at Georgia Tech. While Clemson lost that one on a last-second field goal, tonight was different.
The Tigers jumped out to an early lead and never looked back, cruising to a 41-10 victory, its 13th straight win over the Eagles.
“We put ourselves in a hole, and I don’t know how many championships we are going to get this year, so we said let’s break them out,” Swinney said. “Let’s honor that ’08 team that came up here 17 years ago that made a decision, like I said, to have the best possible finish. Those kids made a decision to try and fight, and they did.”
Photo by Eric Canha-Imagn Images