Blue and Gold Illustrated

January 2019

Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football

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54 JANUARY 2019 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED O ver the past four de- cades, the Notre Dame and Clemson football operations have had remark- able — almost eerie — sym- metry. First, beginning in the 1980s, there was an 11-year period remembered by their fan base with much fond- ness. • In the 11 seasons from 1981-91, mainly under head coach Danny Ford, Clemson won 100 out of the 129 games it played, with five top-10 finishes in the wire service polls, highlighted by the 1981 national championship. Overlapping some was the 11-year Notre Dame stretch under Lou Holtz from 1986-96 in which it too won exactly 100 of the 132 contests played, with five top-10 finishes, among them the 1988 national title. And then came 1994-2011. • In those 18 years, the records were astoundingly almost identical again: Notre Dame was 130-89-1 (.593 win- ning percentage), while Clemson was 131-92 (.587). • The Tigers were often lauded for reeling in top-level recruiting classes, but 9-3 generally was the ceiling and the team was often branded as under- achievers who no longer responded well in marquee settings. In other words, they had become "the Notre Dame of the south." Somewhere along the way, that prompted a derisive coining of a word to Tigers faithful: "Clemsoning." To this day, one can google the def- inition of Clemsoning in the urban dictionary: 1. The act of failing miserably on a grand athletic stage, or when the stakes are high. 2. Record-setting failure, usually re- served for college football. One of the grandest examples of Clemsoning occurred in the Orange Bowl at Sun Life Stadium (remember that venue) on Jan. 4, 2012. Clemson was trying to win its first major bowl in 30 years, when it last captured the national title, and was favored to de- feat West Virginia. The matchup became one of the most embarrassing moments ever in major bowl history. The Mountain- eers destroyed third-year head coach (fourth when you include an interim stint) Dabo Swinney's Clemson squad, 70-33. This prompted Swinney to fire de- fensive coordinator Kevin Steele and bring in Brent Venables from Okla- homa. In the ensuing 2012 season, Swin- ney's Tigers had their first finish with less than a minimum of three losses in 21 years — while 12-1 Notre Dame with third-year head coach Brian Kelly had their first such campaign in 19 seasons. Alas, in that same Sun Life Stadium where a year earlier Clemson was crushed by West Virginia while fall- ing behind 49-20 by halftime, Alabama built a 35-0 margin on Notre Dame while on its way to a 42-14 triumph and the national title. That same 2012 season, Clemson be- gan seeing its fortunes change, high- lighted by a dramatic fourth-quarter 25-24 victory versus LSU in the Peach Bowl. That sounds a little like Notre Dame's own 11th-hour 21-17 fourth- quarter comeback win versus LSU last year in the Citrus Bowl. The vile word "Clemsoning" did re- turn one more time on Oct. 19, 2013, when the No. 3-ranked Tigers on an- other grand stage were annihilated at home by No. 5 Florida State, 51-14 — setting an NCAA record for highest margin of defeat at home by a team ranked No. 3 or higher. However, that season ended with a 40-35 victory over Urban Meyer's Ohio State juggernaut in the Or- ange Bowl, snapping a 32- year drought of Clemson not winning a major bowl. Over the past six years, Clemson has become the second-best college foot- ball program in the country while earning four straight College Football Playoff berths and the 2016 na- tional title. Recently, Kelly has had the makings of a similar path. • Like Swinney with Steele, he had his Brian VanGorder era (2014-16). • Like Swinney and his No. 3 Clem- son team with FSU in 2013, Kelly's No. 3-ranked Irish were humiliated in 2017 by Miami, 41-8. • Like Swinney in 2012, the turn- around began in 2017 with a bowl win over LSU, and continued even more this year with a 12-0 regular season and the first back-to-back 10-win sea- sons at the school since 1991-93. • And like Swinney vanquishing Ohio State for the school's first major bowl triumph in 32 years, this time Kelly could defeat the powerhouse that is Clemson to earn the school's first major bowl victory in 25 years. The Tigers had to overcome "Clem- soning," and Notre Dame now has to halt the popular narrative that it is 0-7 in major bowls since 1994 (with an av- erage margin of defeat of 20 points), repeatedly falters on the grand stage, and would have been the underdog against even Georgia and Ohio State had they made the College Football Playoff, never mind being an 11.5-point underdog versus Clemson, and about 20 points versus Alabama. Clemson changed its unpopular story line about six years ago. It's time for Notre Dame to do the same … fit- tingly enough versus Clemson. ✦ It's Notre Dame's Turn To Halt 'Clemsoning' THE FIFTH QUARTER LOU SOMOGYI Senior Editor Lou Somogyi has been at Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 1985. He can be reached at lsomogyi@blueandgold.com Dabo Swinney (left) gradually grew into his job at Clemson, just as Brian Kelly seems to have at Notre Dame after the 2016 nightmare. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA

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