Leading OFF
History beckons LSU, Clemson in college football title game
LSU breezed past Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl. Clemson fought tooth and nail to defeat Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. When the pair meet Jan. 13 in New Orleans for the College Football Playoff national championship, it will represent a fitting close to a season that saw an elite few lap the rest of the Bowl Subdivision.
Four years ago, when Clemson lost to Alabama during its first Playoff run, the Tigers viewed themselves as a team of destiny matching wits against the Alabama dynasty. That time, dynasty won out. This time, Clemson is a program one win away from securing a third championship under coach Dabo Swinney and being viewed as the latest college football dynasty to etch its place into the sport’s history.
Come the second Monday in January, Clemson will have gone more than two years since its last loss. The two-season run has seen few close games, the latest in Saturday night’s thrilling 29-23 win against the onceunbeaten Buckeyes. Down 16-0 in the first half, the Tigers scratched out two touchdowns in the second quarter and marched on the winning scoring drive with less than two minutes remaining in the game.
This year, at least, LSU has had it even easier. Just one team, Auburn, has held LSU’s offense under 30 points. Even games that seemed close by the scoreboard, such as the 46-41 win at Alabama that justified the Tigers’ growing hype, never seemed much in doubt. Against Alabama and others, LSU and its offense always had an answer.
And LSU is coming off a wickedly devastating 63-28 win against Oklahoma, with nearly 700 yards of total offense as a team and a bowl-record eight total TDs from Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Joe Burrow. As hard as it might be to believe, given how the team has fared since September, the LSU offense is getting better even as the competition grows more difficult.
“We have improved every week,” said former Southern California coach John Robinson, who serves as a senior consultant for LSU coach Ed Orgeron. “The offensive line has become dominant. Nobody gets close to Joe.”
Home-field advantage, of a sort, lies in LSU’s corner. New Orleans will be flooded with LSU fans quick to make the short hop from Baton Rouge and crowd along the city’s narrow backstreets, and the Superdome will have a decidedly purple-and-gold feel.
“The state of Louisiana is going to be on fire,” said Orgeron. “But all those things doesn’t win the football game for you. We have to prepare. We have to study. We have to be ready to play our best football game.”
What Clemson has is experience and now in the Fiesta Bowl a reminder of the increase in tension when Atlantic Coast Conference opponents are replaced by fellow members of the nation’s best. Whether Clemson’s defense is up to the challenge of handling Burrow, the LSU receiver corps and a likely healthy running back in Clyde Edwards-Helaire will determine whether the program can cinch its fourth national championship.
Ohio State’s scheme provided a solid barometer. The Buckeyes and LSU are equally athletic with nearly equal difference-making skill players, though LSU is stronger under center and more proved at wide receiver. In terms of tempo and ability to place strain on an opposing defense, however, the Buckeyes and LSU are cut from a similar cloth. Clemson will have some time to prepare, but it might not be enough.
Maybe the attention should be reversed: LSU might have the offense, but Clemson has the defense. That matchup is one of several storylines worth evaluating before the teams meet:
❚ The No. 1 offense against the No. 1 defense. LSU leads the FBS in averaging 48.9 points per game. Clemson tops the nation in giving up 11.5 points per game. (Clemson also averages 45.3 points per game on offense.)
❚ Clemson has won 29 games in a row, which ties for the sixth longest during the modern era. Another win would move Clemson into a tie with Texas, which won 30 in a row from 1968 to 1970. Beating LSU and rolling off another unbeaten regular season in 2020 would leave Clemson with 42 in a row, the second longest in the history of the sport behind Oklahoma’s 47 (1953-57).
❚ LSU will play in its backyard, true, but the program’s last chance to win a championship in New Orleans went poorly: Alabama pitched a 21-0 shutout in the rematch to end the 2011 season.
❚ It’s difficult to imagine a championship game with a better quarterback matchup in LSU’s Burrow and Clemson’s Lawrence. One that comes close: Texas and Vince Young against Southern California and Matt Leinart to end the 2005 season. But while Leinart and Young were first-round picks, Burrow and Lawrence might very well go first overall in the next two NFL drafts.
❚ This will be a homecoming for Clemson running back Travis Etienne, who hails from Jennings, Louisiana, about 90 miles west of LSU’s campus in Baton Rouge. An under-the-radar recruit who only popped onto Clemson’s radar late in his senior year, Etienne has blossomed into one of the top skill players in the country.
❚ The dynasty label is in play for Clemson. As noted, this could be its third championship in four years. In recent history, this is a feat accomplished only by Alabama and Nebraska.
❚ LSU has a chance to become the most prolific scoring team of the modern era. The Tigers have scored 684 points and stand within striking distance of the current record of 723 points set by Florida State in 2013. (The Seminoles’ total came in 14 games.)
❚ The championship game could serve as a referendum on a shared nickname: LSU and Clemson both call their home fields Death Valley. Clemson was the first to coin the label before LSU followed suit in 1959; previously, LSU had called Tiger Stadium “Deaf Valley.”
More than anything, a place in history is at stake. For LSU, it’s to earn a spot in the pantheon of great teams in program, conference and FBS history, as the second to finish 15-0 in more than a century behind an offense that has written record books. For Clemson, it’s to have a justifiable case for being placed alongside the great dynasties to ever play the sport. One way or another, history will be made in New Orleans.