DOUBLING DOWN ON CLEMSON ’18
Level of competition puts Tigers ahead of ’13 Seminoles as ACC’s best
Florida State in 2013 rescued the ACC from a football wasteland. Not since 2000 had a team from the league finished among the Associated Press’ top five. Worse, the conference’s champions were 2-11 in bowls over the previous 13 years.
From that rubble rose the ’13 Seminoles, undefeated national champions and the founding fathers of the ACC’s ongoing football renaissance. With a Heisman Trophy winner in redshirt freshman quarterback Jameis Winston and the nation’s top defense, FSU was the most dominant and important team in the league’s history.
But when I suggested last week that Clemson’s 2018 national champs surpassed the ’13 Seminoles as the best squad the ACC has seen — there is a difference between best and most dominant — FSU Twitter, uh, objected.
So let’s take a deeper dive than last week’s column afforded. Before we start, two quick notes.
First, players’ success in the NFL has nothing to do with this assessment. We’re talking about how these teams performed in their respective seasons and nothing else.
Second, for all the reverence rightfully accorded Florida State’s undefeated 1999 national champions, their numbers don’t measure up to FSU 2013 and Clemson 2018. On to the debate.
Three 2013 Seminoles were consensus first-team All-Americans — Winston, center Bryan Stork and cornerback Lamarcus Joyner — while 17 made first-, second- or third-team All-ACC.
Similarly, the Tigers this season produced three consensus first-team All-
Americans — offensive tackle Mitch Hyatt, defensive end
Clelin Ferrell and defensive tackle Christian Wilkins — and 18 all-conference selections.
Florida State in 2013 averaged an ACC-record 51.6 points per game and allowed a Division I-best 12.1 per game. That’s a staggering average margin of 39.5 points, also a conference record.
Clemson this season averaged 44.3 points, third-best in league annals, while yielding 13.1 for an average margin of 31.2. Both teams, by the way, led the nation in scoring defense. Florida State ’13 ranked second nationally in scoring offense; Clemson ’18 ranked fourth.
The Seminoles defeated five opponents who were in the Associated Press top 25 at kickoff: No. 25 Maryland, No. 3 Clemson, No. 7 Miami, No. 20 Duke in the ACC championship game and No. 2 Auburn in the Bowl Championship Series title contest.
Of those five opponents, Auburn (second), Clemson (eighth) and Duke (23rd) finished among the top 25. Quarterbacked by Phoebus High graduate Tajh Boyd, that Clemson squad beat Ohio State in the Orange Bowl.
Indeed, Florida State’s 51-14 road destruction of Clemson was stunningly ruthless — trust me, I was there.
Eight of the Seminoles’ 13
Bowl Subdivision opponents finished above .500, and three won at least 10 games. Combined, those 13 teams went 86-80.
But, to be kind, Florida State’s regular-season non-conference schedule was tame. Tossing aside the Championship Subdivision’s Bethune-Cookman, the Seminoles clubbed 4-8 Nevada, 1-11 Idaho and 4-8 Florida — combined record 9-27.
In the BCS title game, Winston’s 2-yard touchdown pass to Kelvin Benjamin with 13 seconds remaining lifted Florida State over Auburn 34-31, FSU’s lone one-score game of the season. The Tigers had lost at LSU during the regular season, upset Alabama in the Iron Bowl and defeated Missouri in the Southeastern Conference championship game to earn their date with the Seminoles.
Clemson’s opponents this season were better.
The Tigers defeated four teams that were ranked at kickoff: No. 16 North Carolina State, No. 17 Boston College, No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 1 Alabama. Four of their victims finished among the top 25: No. 16 Texas A&M, No. 15 Syracuse, No. 5 Notre Dame and No. 2 Alabama.
Eleven of Clemson’s 14 FBS opponents posted winning records, four won at least 10 games, and their combined record was 114-68 — far superior to the 86-80 mark of Florida State’s FBS opponents in 2013. Much of that advantage came from the nonconference, where the Tigers defeated 9-4 Texas A&M, 10-3 Georgia Southern and 7-6 South Carolina.
Clemson survived one-score scares versus A&M and Syracuse, but quarterback Trevor Lawrence shared time with Kelly Bryant in the former game and missed half of the latter with a neck injury. Oh, and A&M and Syracuse finished a combined 19-7.
Absent a College Football Playoff in 2013, Florida State was not afforded a postseason semifinal. So Clemson’s 30-3 smoking of previously undefeated Notre Dame in December’s semis skews the numbers somewhat.
Still, there’s no denying that the Tigers’ championship game performance surpasses FSU 2013’s signature victory at Death Valley and its title conquest of once-beaten Auburn.
Alabama was 14-0 and, other than in the SEC title game against Georgia, unchallenged. With five consensus first-team All-Americans, the Crimson Tide had routed four SEC West rivals — Texas A&M, LSU, Mississippi State and Auburn — that won at least eight games.
Clemson whipped Alabama 44-16, the Tide’s most lopsided loss since the 1998 Music City Bowl against Virginia Tech. The dominance was reminiscent of Nebraska housing Florida 62-24 for the 1995 national title, and Southern California doing the same to Oklahoma — 55-19 was the carnage — in the January 2005 BCS final.
None of this will, or should, sway FSU fans. But surely the reasonable among them can acknowledge that, like the 2013 Seminoles, the 2018 Tigers were historically good.