BK, Dabo Look Back & Maybe Ahead At Notre Dame, Clemson
30-3.
That was the score the last time Notre Dame and Clemson faced off in a College Football Playoff Semifinal following the 2018 season.
The Tigers broke open the game with a pair of long touchdown passes from then-freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence to Justyn Ross in the second quarter and then another one to Tee Higgins two seconds before the half.
The Irish defense held up for most of the second half, but the offense could never get anything going and Clemson running back Travis Etienne sealed it with a 62-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter.
The narrative afterward was a familiar one; Notre Dame didn’t have the athletes to compete with the sport’s truly elite programs.
Irish head coach Brian Kelly said as much following a 42-14 drubbing the BCS National Championship Game after the 2012 season. But despite a similar margin of defeat, Kelly’s tone was starkly different after the loss to the Tigers, disputing the idea that the talent gap was “overwhelming.”
"Do I feel like it's different than that game?” he said afterward, comparing the two postseason contests. “Oh, I do. Absolutely. I left that (Alabama) game feeling there was so much work to be done from the inside out, so much development, so much recruiting.”
After losing to Clemson, Kelly said the program was “on the brink” of winning a championship.
Those feelings were confirmed for him after watching that Tigers team go on to beat Alabama 44-16 to win the national championship a week later and he feels that way to this day.
“People fail to recognize the next week they absolutely blitzed Alabama,” Kelly said earlier this week, in advance of his next shot at Clemson. “Nobody talked about the talent gap there, nobody talked about the coaching gap there.
“They just talked about the talent gap and coaching gap between Notre Dame and Clemson.”
Apparently, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney saw things the same way.
“If you really watch the game, it was a tough, tough game for both teams, but we hit some really big plays and got control of the game,” Swinney said earlier this week. “Once we got control of the game, our defense is a hard team to come back on.
“That’s usually what it comes down to in those types of games, a few plays. I know sometimes you can look at the scoreboard and say, ‘Oh, you killed them.’ But it’s usually just a few plays.”
And it’s likely whoever makes those few plays on Saturday will be the winner, but both coaches noted the real possibility they will be playing each other again next month in the ACC Championship Game.
“We’re both Top 5 teams, so I would say it’s very likely,” Swinney said.
Thanks to an agreement with the ACC to be a full member for 2020, playing for a conference title is an additional goal for the Irish. Meanwhile, this unique season has taken a couple goals away from the Tigers, who place an emphasis on beating South Carolina and winning their division each year. With the late rearrangement of the season structure, Clemson isn’t playing its rival and the ACC isn’t broken into divisions.
That leaves the ACC Championship – and as Swinney said, “Anything that comes after that.”
“This would be a huge in that direction for both teams.”