{"id":69893,"date":"2024-12-08T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-08T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=69893"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:47:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:47:15","slug":"69893-clemson-gets-the-playoff-guarantee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/12\/08\/69893-clemson-gets-the-playoff-guarantee\/","title":{"rendered":"Clemson Gets the Playoff Guarantee While SMU Gets Limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The terms were pretty clear. Clemson needed the win and the ACC championship<\/a> to get into the College Football Playoff. SMU was already sitting in a good position at 11-1, but winning the conference championship would take any decision out of the committee\u2019s hands. A loss would leave the Mustangs\u2019 future in limbo. On the strength of a 56-yard walk-off field goal, Clemson gets the playoff guarantee while SMU gets limbo for about six more hours.<\/p>\n

Nolan Hauser set an ACC Championship Game record with the 56-yarder with no time left on the clock and it gave Clemson the 34-31 win. The Tigers get the automatic playoff bid as the ACC champion. SMU has to wait until the committee announces the 12 teams for the playoffs on Sunday. If SMU does not drop out of the playoffs, there will be two ACC teams, and Alabama will likely be left on the outside looking in. The committee\u2019s willingness to do that to an SEC legacy team is dubious.<\/p>\n

SMU had a huge comeback, being down by 17 points in the second half, only to tie it with 16 seconds left. But then the Mustangs surrendered a 41-yard kickoff return to the Clemson 45-yard line. Quarterback Cade Klubnik<\/a> completed one pass to Antonio Williams for 17 yards with three seconds left. Then it was left to Hauser\u2019s leg.<\/p>\n

It was hardly a piece of football art by either team early on in Charlotte Saturday night. At halftime, neither team had even managed 200 yards of offense. For SMU it was because the offense was disjointed and unable to sustain any significant drive early on. For Clemson it was because they were playing with a short field most of the time, thanks to SMU mistakes. Clemson\u2019s average starting field position in the first quarter was the SMU 47-yard line.<\/p>\n

The Tigers had run only six plays on offense to get to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

On SMU\u2019s first drive of the game quarterback Kevin Jennings was sacked by T.J. Parker and fumbled. Parker recovered at the SMU 35-yard line. It took just two plays for Clemson to cash in. Klubnik hit Bryant Wesco, Jr. with a 35-yard touchdown pass and the 7-0 lead. The drive took all of 39 seconds.<\/p>\n

On its next drive, SMU punted, and Clemson got it at the Mustangs 43-yard line. Throw in a personal foul penalty against SMU and Clemson only needed four plays to go 28 yards in 1:54 for the 14-0 lead.<\/p>\n

It was SMU\u2019s third drive of the game before it finally saw back-to-back positive yardage plays. Jennings sprinted to the right from 24 yards out for the touchdown to cap a 10-play, 75-yard drive and narrow the lead to 14-7 Clemson.<\/p>\n

The Tigers put it back out to 21-7 in the first quarter. On third and 13 from the SMU 43-yard line, Klubnik threw a slant pass over the middle to Wesco, who bounced off a couple of defensive backs and stumbled his way into the end zone for the 21-7 lead.<\/p>\n

Clemson added a 44-yard field goal from Hauser to make it a 24-7 game for Clemson at the half. Klubnik was all of 11 of 19 for 129 yards but he had the three touchdown passes on the short fields. Jennings was only 12 of 22 for 102 yards with a fumble and interception.<\/p>\n

The game lit up in the second half. Jennings led a seven-play, 74-yard drive. He slung a pass to the right side to Brashard Smith from 10 yards out to shrink the gap to 24-14.<\/p>\n

But Klubnik was also getting hot. On third and goal from the five-yard line, he drilled a pass on a rope to Jake Brinningstool in the front of the end zone. It capped a 10-play, 58-yard scoring drive and created a 17-point gap for SMU to have to climb out of.<\/p>\n

But climb out SMU did. In the fourth quarter, Jennings used his legs to buy more time in the pocket. He connected with Matthew Hibner on a 20-yard touchdown pass, capping a 75-yard drive that used only 2:01 of the clock. Time management was going to be essential in SMU\u2019s comeback.<\/p>\n

Collin Rogers connected on a 46-yard field goal to make it 31-24 Clemson still with 6:56 to play.<\/p>\n

Clemson responded with a drive that burned less than one minute off the clock with two incompletions.<\/p>\n

SMU had one last run it. Starting on its own 21-yard line, Jennings converted on four third-down plays to keep the drive alive. On the run, he threw a short four yard pass to Roderick Daniels, Jr. for the touchdown that tied the game.<\/p>\n

And then came the kickoff return, the 17-yard pass, the kick that SMU will be feeling for years to come.<\/p>\n

SMU had 130 yards more of total offense than Clemson did. The Mustangs had 90 more yards rushing, and Jennings was 31 of 50 for 304 yards and three touchdowns. Klubnik meanwhile was 24 of 41 for 262 yards. But he had the four touchdowns, with three of them building a huge lead in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

So what happens next? Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney lobbied hard after the game for SMU to make the playoffs. SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee said after the game, \u201cIt would be criminal if we are not in it.\u201d But he also acknowledged, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what I say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last Word<\/em> will have more post-game press conference coverage before the playoff lineup is announced Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"Clemson
Photo courtesy:\u00a0 Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The terms were pretty clear. Clemson needed the win and the ACC championship to get into the College Football Playoff. SMU was already sitting in a good position at 11-1, but winning the conference championship would take any decision out of the committee\u2019s hands. A loss would leave the Mustangs\u2019 future in limbo. On the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":69901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,35645],"tags":[2639,36,680,648,590],"class_list":["post-69893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","category-clemson-tigers","tag-acc-championship","tag-clemson-tigers","tag-dabo-swinney","tag-rhett-lashlee","tag-smu-mustangs"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69907,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69893\/revisions\/69907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}