Saturday’s parameters were pretty clear. In the Big 12 championship game, the winner goes to the playoffs and the loser goes home. Arizona State is in. For the SEC championship game, both Texas and Georgia are in no matter what. And both teams played a watered-down, safe version of a championship game. In the Big 10, both Penn State and Oregon were already in, but the Ducks made a statement as number one. But the ACC is murky. We know Clemson is in after the 34-31 last-second win. But where does that leave 11-2 SMU? Here is what Clemson and SMU had to say after the ACC championship game.
Dabo Swinney
The Clemson head coach has now won the ACC championship game eight times since 2015. He made it clear earlier in the week that he knew that with three losses, the Tigers had to win to make the new expanded playoff format. And so they did, on the strength of Nolan Hauser’s 56-yard field goal with no time left on the clock.
“I’m really, really happy for our players. They deserve it and they earned it. Nobody gave them anything; they earned it,” Swinney said after the game.
Aside from putting Clemson in the playoff with the automatic bid as the ACC champion, Hauser’s kick put his name in the record books. It was the longest field in ACC championship game history. It was the first walk-off field goal in ACC championship game history. Dabo shared his thoughts on it.
“I mean, what a kick. I think it’s the longest game-winning kick in Clemson history,” Swinney said. “I’m just so happy for Nolan, right here, Charlotte kid, a freshman, and those are the type of things that — those are the type of wins that really propel you.”
Swinney revisited the week in total, from losing to in-state rival South Carolina last Saturday, only to go home and see Syracuse beat Miami to put Clemson into the championship game. And then the thriller on Saturday.
“You hate games like that. They age you. But when you win them — and we had a heartbreaker last week — we’ve experienced — you can’t have two different emotions in two weeks from what we’ve experienced.”
Rhett Lashlee
Obviously the SMU head coach is on the other side of that emotional swing. The Mustangs came in at number eight in the country with an 11-1 record. But would an SMU loss secure Alabama’s post-season future and drop SMU all the way out? Lashlee was defiant after the game.
“It would be criminal if we’re not in. It would be wrong. And it would be wrong on so many levels, not just to our team. It would be wrong to what college football stands for, to what it is,” he told the media. “We just played a playoff game basically out there and played pretty danged good. That was a pretty good game. I think for the last three quarters everybody saw what they’ve seen all year.”
Lashlee had a message for a committee that he knew was not listening.
“Our team deserves a chance to be in. It doesn’t matter what I say, but it would be incredibly wrong. I think it would be unprecedented. It would set a really bad precedent. It would break all the principles of what we’ve been told.” He added, “I don’t know what to say. They don’t care what I say. But we should be in, and they know we should be in, so we’ll see what happens.”
Bad Start, Tough Finish
If the eye test that the committee claims is part of their process is true, it is a two-chapter story for SMU. In the first quarter, Clemson scored two touchdowns with only six plays on offense. The Tigers were living on the SMU side of the 50-yard line because of the Mustangs’ turnovers and poor play.
“We had a really bad first quarter. You have a bad first quarter and get down 21-7 because we had two turnovers and put the ball — gave them the ball, I think, four times on the plus side of the field because I thought our defense played really well, but it was just tough,” Lashlee said.
And then there was the epic comeback that led to SMU tying the score late in the game. “Yeah, our guys are disappointed, but I’m really, really proud of them. I think they showed the championship makeup they have. I think they showed the kind of team they are the way they battled back second, third, and fourth quarter tying the game with 16 seconds left.”
In between the bad first quarter and the roller coaster of emotions at the end, there were a few critical moments that hinged on officials’ calls.
“There were two critical calls that didn’t go our way that gave them 14 points. The roughing the passer which I thought was clean. But they explained it. They ended up scoring instead of us being off the field on that 3rd down. And then the OPI that got picked up,” Lashlee opined. “Calls go your way; calls don’t go your way. It happens. Those were two big ones that didn’t go our way. We only had six penalties, but they had zero. Someone said 1952 was the last time they had a game with zero penalties.”
Dabo’s Two Cents
And going back to Swinney, he had definitive thoughts on SMU’s postseason future. “And SMU, I can’t say enough good things about them. That’s a playoff team. There’s no way they can’t be in. They should not be punished for that moment right there.”
The playoff committee will be announcing its final 12 on Sunday around noon Eastern.
