PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. — Despite a 34-year wait since its last opportunity to win a national title, hardly anyone who has followed college football closely in recent years would be surprised Clemson has ascended to this stage in Monday night'sCollege Football Playoff championship game. From recruiting rankings to the school's ramped-up investment in facilities to its recent history of knocking off other elite programs in bowl games, everything under Dabo Swinney's watch has been pointing toward this kind of moment.
"We're trying to be the best, get to the very top and if we continue to be about the right things, we'll get where we need to be and it's going to be a lot of fun when we do," Swinney said in a prescient moment on National Signing Day last February.
Programming Note: WLTX will also host a half-hour special at 7:30 p.m. looking ahead to the game hosted by Sports Director Reggie Anderson, who's in Arizona covering the team.
But the special season Swinney was hoping for seemed like it might be going off the rails prior to the first kickoff of this season.
It has long been forgotten amid the celebration of Clemson's 14-0 record, No. 1 ranking, post-game dance celebrations and trademarked acronyms, but the Tigers' season began with six players — four of whom were expected to start — either seriously injured, disciplined or gone from the program. Another starter, the 2014 leading yardage receiver Mike Williams, was lost to injury on the first possession of Clemson's first game.
Though every program suffers offseason attrition, this was a particularly large number of key players to lose between spring practice and the regular season, sparking some concern about whether an already young Clemson team could fulfill expectations.
"To be honest, it was pretty frightening," defensive coordinator Brent Venables said. "Fortunately we've got enough guys we've been able to pull from. A lot of programs don't have that. We found we had good players on the shelf."
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Because the margins are so thin in college football — just look at Ohio State missing the Playoff with one loss on a last-second field goal — coaches generally accept that good health and good fortune are large components of winning a national championship. The Crimson Tide could wind up being a prime example as a team that has stayed relatively injury-free and got a big break when Arkansas converted a fourth-and-25 in overtime to beat Ole Miss on Nov. 7, allowing Alabama to overtake the Rebels in the SEC West race.
But Clemson's season runs counter to conventional wisdom. In fact, it's quite impressive they're here at all given the way things looked by the start of September.
By that point, Clemson had already suffered the following attrition:
? Defensive end Ebo Ogundeko, a former four-star recruit who would likely have been a backup this year, was dismissed in May after an arrest for financial transaction card fraud.
Full Coverage: Clemson Tigers Playing for National Title
? Kicker Ammon Lakip, who made 75% of his field goals last season, was arrested in June for cocaine possession and DUI and suspended three games.
? Senior offensive tackle Isaiah Battle, who had been in and out of Swinney's doghouse several times but was expected to be the anchor of Clemson's line, left in June and entered the NFL's supplemental draft.
? Early in fall camp, Clemson lost one of the few returning defensive players with experience when safety Korrin Wiggins tore his ACL on Aug. 12.
? A few days after that redshirt freshman linebacker Korie Rogers, a former top-100 national recruit that Swinney expected to play a significant role, quit the team unexpectedly, deciding he did not want to play football any longer.
? Then on Aug. 25, starting defensive tackle D.J. Reader left the team under murky circumstances in what was termed a "leave of absence."
? And it certainly seemed like a crushing blow to lose Williams, who caught 57 passes for 1,030 yards in 2014, to a neck injury suffered when he crashed into the goalpost following a touchdown catch in Clemson's opener.
"He's going to be one of our franchise premier players like (Sammy) Watkins and (DeAndre) Hopkins," co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott said. "If he stayed healthy, I think he would have had a chance to be a top-10 pick this year."
Swinney, however, refused to let the personnel setbacks serve as an excuse for falling out of the race. Though every program has a threshold for attrition that it simply can't overcome, Swinney has always preferred to focus more on who is on the field rather than who isn't. And he's got a significant track record to back him up.
Clemson sent three players home from the Orange Bowl (including Lakip and key receiver Deon Cain) for team rules violations. Prior to the 2012 season, Swinney suspended Watkins — its star receiver and best player — for two games over misdemeanor drug charges, including a huge matchup against nationally-rankedAuburn.
And as Swinney noted, the Tigers beat LSU in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl later that season without several players including Watkins (injured) and receiver Martavis Bryant(suspended).
It speaks to Swinney's core belief that if his program was built the way it was intended — to win championships — it can overcome adversity.
"In my mind, I'm just always dialed in on, Okay, this is what we've got. Let's go to work, let's make the best of it," he said. "That's why you recruit well. We've recruited well, and you saw that in our Orange Bowl game. I mean, Austin Bryant, freshman, made the hit on fourth-and-1. Kendall Joseph, freshman, Dorian O'Daniel, sophomore; those were the three guys on maybe one of the top-three biggest plays in that game. I just don't worry about that woe-is-me stuff. I just focus on what we need to do to win the game. God never says, ‘oops,' so that's just how I look at it."
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Still, Venables admitted to some concern within the program, to the point where he wondered if it might just be one of those seasons where good fortune didn't roll in their direction. In particular Venables was having to deal with a transitioning defense after losing 10 contributors and his entire starting defensive line, which didn't leave much room for error.
"(Reader) was playing better than anybody on our D-line through fall camp and had looked better than he has at any time since he'd been at Clemson," Venables said. "Any time you lose that kind of physical presence from a group that you already had a lot of unknowns, it can be pretty catastrophic. Fortunately it wasn't."
On both sides of the ball, Clemson needed a collective effort from its inexperienced players to make up for the losses. Up front, the Tigers got strong contributions from freshman defensive tackle Christian Wilkins and sophomore Scott Pagano, who developed into a key player. Halfway through the regular season Reader returned to the team, giving the defense a significant depth boost.
In retrospect, it was probably better for the Tigers to suffer their losses early rather than in midstream.
"We knew what we had to work with coming right into the season," safety Jayron Kearse said. "That helped us big-time instead of getting down to Week 7 and you lose a starter and then you have a guy who hasn't played much who has to take on that role. We built some guys up against Appalachian State, Louisville, Wofford, and when we got to those big games, those guys had that experience where they could go out and play good football."
There was less concern offensively because even though Battle was one of the few returning players with significant experience up front, the Tigers knew they had a potentially special freshman at his position in Mitch Hyatt, who came into the program last January and went through spring practice. And while Williams was poised to be a star, Clemson liked its alternatives at wide receiver all along.
"As soon as that happened, our answer to our guys in our room was, ‘Hey we're not going to make up for Mike Williams with one person,' " Scott said. "Maybe what we lose from that we can gain by the depth that we have in this room. We've had some very talented wide receivers at Clemson that had great years and great stats and yards, but I've never had a group as deep as this group. Several times this year my seventh guy has played 20 snaps or more. We're looking at the quantity over maybe having one or two premiere guys and the other benefit of that is we've really been able to spread the ball around."
Though it dominated conversation in August, attrition has been mostly a forgotten storyline of Clemson's season. And that, in and of itself, proves the Tigers are as legitimate and deserving as anyone who could have made it to this moment.
"I think it's a lesson," Venables said. "A lot of times you hear the coaches — and I've been there — where you say, ‘Well, we're young.' It's not an excuse necessarily but it's a reason why because mature teams usually play at a really consistent level and they understand the grind and how to compete and how to rest their bodies and go to class and handle the structure. So to say we'd replace every player on our offensive and defensive lines and have our issues at the beginning of the year, I wouldn't have guessed we'd be in this position."
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