After slow start, Clemson football is peaking at perfect time

The Clemson Tigers have crushed their last five opponents after surviving the North Carolina Tar Heels. In mid-November, they’re peaking at the right time.

It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen. A defending national champion will stay undefeated the following season, but won’t garner the respect of the national media. Like the 2014 Florida State Seminoles, the 2019 Clemson Tigers are navigating an incredibly weak ACC en route to a likely trip to the College Football Playoff. They’ll make it, but there is no margin for error.

In the first College Football Playoff Rankings of the season, Clemson found itself as the first team out, coming in at No. 5. The Tigers were 9-0 (6-0) but had to look up at four other undefeated teams in the No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes, the No. 2 LSU Tigers, the No. 3 Alabama Crimson Tide and the No. 4 Penn State Nittany Lions. It may not have been fair, but it was Clemson’s reality.

Well, fate would have it that two of the top-four teams in the country lost on Saturday before Clemson even took the field. No. 4 Penn State was upset on the road by the No. 17 Minnesota Golden Gophers. A dominant first half on the road was enough LSU to seemingly wash away the Crimson Tide’s realistic College Football Playoff opportunities.

By humiliating the division rival North Carolina State Wolfpack to get to 10-0 (7-0), Clemson moved up from No. 5 to No. 3 in the latest Playoff rankings, behind only LSU at No. 1 and Ohio State at No. 2.

Clemson only has the Wake Forest Demon Deacons left in ACC play, who were humiliated by the Virginia Tech Hokies. The Tigers will be on a bye after that before a certain whooping of the archrival South Carolina Gamecocks in the Palmetto Bowl. South Carolina could be moving on from head coach Will Muschamp, as his team is in disarray after upsetting the Georgia Bulldogs a month ago.

All the while, Clemson has found its footing after nearly getting upset on the road by Mack Brown‘s North Carolina Tar Heels at the end of September. Since surviving in Chapel Hill, the Tigers have scored at least 45 points in their last five victories, surrendering no more than 14 points in any of those contests. Those wins came against four ACC opponents, plus the Wofford Terriers.

Simply put, Clemson is dismantling every team that has come in its path for the last month and a half. The Tigers are starting to peak, if they haven’t already, rounding into championship form at just about the right time. Only Wake Forest, South Carolina and the ACC Coastal division champion stands in Dabo Swinney‘s team’s way of reaching the Playoff for the fifth straight season.

So who’s leading the charge to perfection once again for Clemson? Well, let’s start with one of the most complete offenses in the country. Sophomore quarterback Trevor Lawrence has stopped making sophomoric decisions of late, potentially making a last-minute run towards the Heisman Trophy ceremony.

His star running back Travis Etienne has already surpassed the 1,000-yard threshold on the ground, as he is putting together quite the résumé and one that could land him the highly coveted Doak Walker Award. Lastly, how could we forget about one of the best receiving tandems in college football in Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross? Higgins may go over 1,000 yards this season.

On the other side of the ball, defensive coordinator Brent Venables has done a marvelous job of reloading his front-seven on the fly. Clemson lost an absurd amount of talent to the 2019 NFL Draft in the trenches. With the way his defense is playing, you wouldn’t have thought he’d lost three defensive linemen in the first round. No wonder he’s garnering head-coaching consideration.

All the while, Swinney has his team focused and not overly concerned about the haters and the outside noise. If Clemson does its job over the next few weeks, the Tigers will be back in the College Football Playoff. They may not win the national title or even reach the championship game, but Clemson has hit its stride and will almost certainly be there. They just can’t screw up.

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