Saturday’s ACC Championship Game was a big night for Clemson. Coming off a disappointing rivalry loss to South Carolina, the first of its kind since 2013, as well as missing out on the ACC title game last season, the Tigers had a lot to prove.

First-year defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin’s defense came away with arguably its best performance of the season en route to the 39-10 victory, giving North Carolina quarterback and ACC Player of the Year Drake Maye trouble all game. Linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr. was a big part of that.

“It’s big,” Trotter said regarding the win. “I feel like it really shows the type of program that we have, like the type of championship mindset that we have here at Clemson; that was really big for us. This is my first one, so this is going to be a special one for me, and I’m just proud of my guys, proud of my team. I feel like everybody really worked their butts off throughout the whole week to really prepare for this game and really show out on the big stage.”

The 6-foot, 230-pounder put together an impressive performance against the Tar Heels, recording nine tackles (3.0 for loss), a career-high three sacks and one quarterback pressure as well as leading the Tigers defensively.

With his three sacks against Maye, Trotter set an ACC Championship record and became the first Clemson player to garner at least 2.0 sacks in back-to-back games since defensive end Clelin Ferrell did in 2018 against Texas A&M and Georgia Southern.

Trotter attributes both his own performance and the defense’s to the redemptive mindset they adopted following the tough loss to the Gamecocks last week — a mindset the sophomore says set them up for success against a highly touted North Carolina offense.

“I feel like the mentality this week was trying to redeem ourselves,” Trotter said. “We had a tough loss last week, but we had to shake that off, get our mindset back right so we could prepare for this week. I feel like our team really did that throughout the week and it really showed.”

Dear Old Clemson has added the Tiger Sack Pack to our online store.  Save by getting the Two Pack of signed cards from two of the nation’s top defensive ends, Myles Murphy and Xavier Thomas.

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