There was 11:59 to play in the game, and top-ranked Clemson was backed up to its 8-yard line in a tied game with the team that has owned the ACC the last three seasons – 16th-ranked Florida State.
So what were Deshaun Watson and his teammates talking about in the end zone as they waited for ESPN to come back from a commercial break?
“We were just having fun, again,” Watson said following the Tigers’ 23-13 victory over FSU. “I just huddled the guys up and told them I love them, and this what we came here to do. Let’s have fun and win championships.
“Let’s make a play and do what we did in the fourth quarter. We just kept moving forward.”
The Tigers, 9-0 for the first time since 1981, responded to their leader’s confident and laid back attitude and proceeded to drive the football 75 yards on 11 plays. On what turned out to be the game-clinching drive, Watson completed a 10-yard pass to Germone Hopper, ran for 11 yards, hit Artavis Scott for a 10-yard gain, and then found tight end Jordan Leggett for back-to-back gains of 17 and 12 yards.
The end result was a 34-yard Greg Huegel field goal that gave Clemson a 16-13 lead with 7:23 to play.
“Our guys never quit,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said.
Now it was the defense’s turn to step up. Following a 44-yard kickoff return by Kermit Whitfield that put the ball at the Clemson 49, Florida State quarterback Sean Maguire threw an incomplete pass to Jesus Wilson, before finding him open in the flats for a nine-yard gain on second down.
On third-and-one, they quickly rode a toss sweep to running back Dalvin Cook, who was stopped for no gain. With 6:30 to go in the game, FSU head coach Jimbo Fisher elected to go for it. Again, he tried the toss sweep to Cook, but again the Tigers rose to the challenge as Shaq Lawson sniffed it out and linebacker Boulware finished it off.
Cook was held to no gain, and the Tigers were starring an ACC Atlantic Division Championship in the face.
Watson and running back Wayne Gallman took the lead from the defense and finished the game off. Running behind an offensive line that has been as physical and as dominant as any out there, the Tigers took over with 6:17 to play and before they gave it back to FSU they extended the lead to 23-13 with 2:34 showing on the clock.
Gallman put the finishing touchdowns on the seven-play, 60-yard drive with a 25-yard run in which he blew through three Seminoles on his way to pay dirt.
“We just dominated them,” left guard Eric Mac Lain said. “They told us, ‘Hey guys, look, it is all on you.’ And we said, ‘Alright, let’s go.’ They really gave us a great opportunity with the screens and stuff like that to really slow down their rush, but kudos to the offensive line.
“We just came together and took it on our shoulders.”
The defense then finished things off. After Florida State’s Travis Rudolph caught a pass from Maguire that went for 25 yards, an alert Boulware stripped the ball from his arms and linebacker B.J. Goodson caught it out of the air.
“The defense forced two turnovers and really a third one on the fourth-down stop,” Swinney said. “That was a championship play.”
And it started with a championship drive.