Clemson is moving onto the College Football Playoff by the skin of its teeth. Or, better put: By the strength of its freshman kicker’s leg. Tigers placekicker Nolan Hauser ended the craziest ACC championship in the game’s history by hitting a career-long 56-yard field goal at the buzzer to lift Clemson over SMU, 34-31, on Saturday night at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium. It was the longest field goal in ACC title game history, the first walk-off play of any kind in the game’s 20-year history and the first time in FBS history a team won a conference championship on a walk-off field goal of 50-plus yards. And it sent the No. 17 Tigers off to the first ever 12-team CFP … all after Clemson blew a 17-point fourth-quarter lead against the Mustangs. All of this, of course, came after the Tigers lost at home Nov. 30 to rival South Carolina and thought their CFP chances were done until Syracuse upset Miami later that night, sending the Tigers to the ACC title game in backdoor fashion. Talk about improbable on top of improbable. SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings, whose team trailed 31-14 early in the fourth quarter, threw a touchdown pass with 16 seconds left to tie the game at 31-31. Then, madness. SMU kicked off with 16 seconds left to Clemson’s 4-yard line. Tigers receiver Adam Randall — who was only returning kicks because the starting returner, running back Jay Haynes, was injured — returned it for 41 yards. Clemson’s longest return of the year (and Randall’s first of the year) took seven seconds. The Tigers then had one play to get into field-goal range, and they hit it. Quarterback Cade Klubnik found receiver Antonio Williams for a 17-yard gain on the left side of the field, and he dropped down with three seconds remaining. Timeout. Exhale. Hauser did the rest. “That kid will go down in Clemson lore,” coach Dabo Swinney said in a joyous postgame interview with ABC after his Tigers qualified for their first CFP since 2020.
Everyone involved got bailed out by Hauser, a true freshman kicker and native of nearby Cornelius, North Carolina who’s the son of a former Clemson baseball player and women’s soccer player and nailed the kick of his life in his home state. The No. 17 Tigers (10-3) shouldn’t have any issues finishing as one of the committee’s top five highest-ranked conference champs after toppling the No. 8 Mustangs (11-2). SMU, meanwhile, will hope it’s done enough to make it in the CFP field as an at-large. Worth watching: How does the committee evaluate the ACC champion Tigers’ résumé against that of Big 12 champion Arizona State, which defeated Iowa State, and of Mountain West champion Boise State, which beat UNLV?
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