On Tuesday of last week, ahead of Clemson’s eventual 24-10 home win over Florida State last Saturday, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney decided that after their first touchdown in the game, the Tigers were going to go for two instead of kicking the extra point.

“I made the decision on Tuesday — which is our kind of heavy field goal day and our prep day there – I made the decision on Tuesday,” Swinney said during his weekly radio show on Monday night. “I told the team, ‘First touchdown, we’re going to get two. It’s going to be eight points, not seven.’”

That’s exactly what ended up happening. After the Tigers received the opening kickoff, they marched down the field on a 13-play, 75-yard drive, capped with a 4-yard touchdown run by quarterback Cade Klubnik.

Clemson (4-5, 3-4 ACC) then executed a successful two-point conversion to take an 8-0 lead, thanks to a fake extra point where holder Clay Swinney – Dabo Swinney’s youngest son – took the extra-point snap and ran it into the end zone to score the first points of his career.

“Clay did a good job getting it in there,” Dabo said. “Good execution, and it was big.”

Dabo joked that his wife, Kathleen, was mad at him for not telling her that he was planning for their son to run in that trick play two-point conversion against the Noles.

“She didn’t know anything about it,” Dabo said. “In fact, she was mad at me. She’s like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’”

“She’s on a need-to-know basis only,” he added jokingly.

During his weekly Tuesday press conference, Dabo was asked why he didn’t tell Kathleen about the two-point conversion play.

“There’s a lot I don’t tell her,” he said, smiling. “I just go home. I try not to bring work home. I try to just go home, and I don’t really get much into game plan with Kath. It’s probably a good thing.”

Clay Swinney has carried on the family legacy of Swinney holders, following in the footsteps of his brothers Will (Clemson’s primary holder from 2017-21) and Drew (2022).

The last placekick held by a non-Swinney was the final extra point of Clemson’s national championship victory against Alabama to end the 2016 season (Seth Ryan following Hunter Renfrow’s game-winning touchdown).