Notre Dame and Clemson will take the field in Arlington later this month in the Cotton Bowl college football semi-final. On January 7, 2013 Notre Dame suffered an embarrassing defeat at (then named) Sun Life Stadium while a year earlier on January 4, 2012 in the same stadium Clemson suffered their own shameful loss. Slumping off the field in Miami Gardens that night at the completion of his 3rd full season with the Tigers, Dabo Swinney was walking wounded following a 37-point loss to West Virginia.
The comments from Clemson fans afterward were brutal. These are all real-life comments culled from the internet in the wake of the loss: The program was soft, players were lazy and lacked motivation, practices were too easy, the S&C program was a joke, there was a culture problem, no spine from anyone on campus, and serious deep-rooted issues that needed to be addressed.
Eight days after the Orange Bowl loss, Clemson fired defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. Still, many fans wanted S&C coach Joey Batson’s head on a stick* as well. Following another week into late January the Tigers hired Brent Venables away from Oklahoma by doubling his salary to over $850,000^ per year. The hire was met with some skepticism due to the reputation of the Big 12 and Venables being stripped of his play-calling duties when Mike Stoops returned to Oklahoma just a handful of days earlier.
*Batson remains in his role today, if you need more evidence that S&C is largely overrated in the grand scheme.Â
^Venables makes $2.2 million today, 2nd highest for an assistant in the country.Â
However, the addition of Venables would prove to be a watershed moment in Clemson history as the soon-to-be 48-year old has become the unquestioned top defensive coordinator in the country and linchpin to the Tigers’ success over the past 7 seasons.
During those opening months of 2012 you couldn’t get away from the term “Clemsoning.” It was everywhere, worked into seemingly every third joke on websites all across the college football spectrum. Sure, it was beaten to death but also provided everyone with plenty of giggles.
Clemsoning is now extinct.
Since the start of 2012, Clemson’s .882 winning percentage trails only the historical pace of Ohio State (.903) and Alabama (.916) with Oklahoma (.813) a decent step down in 4th behind the Tigers. Recent defeats to unranked Syracuse (2017) and #22 Pittsburgh (2016) brought us shades of Clemsoning but all of the Tigers’ other 9 losses since 2012 have come to Top 10 teams, including a trio of #1 National Champions and five teams that finished in the AP Top 5 rankings.
The funny thing is that Clemson’s embarrassing loss in the 2012 Orange Bowl really masked the progress Swinney was making. In his first 3 full seasons, the Tigers took home a pair of divisional titles and won their first ACC Championship in 2 decades. The high of winning the league for the first time in so long really exacerbated the low Clemson fans felt after such a high-profile loss to West Virginia.
Still, defense remained an issue despite Kevin Steele (then and now) having a strong reputation as a coordinator. The talent was there but the results just weren’t coming through on that side of the ball so much that Clemson finished 2011 73rd nationally in the defensive S&P+ rankings.
Venables is on a historic run as a defensive coordinator.
Venables’ arrival was crucial for Clemson but also an early nod to the power of advanced statistics. Although Oklahoma’s defense routinely led the Big 12 in most categories many Clemson fans weren’t especially thrilled about the Sooners being 55th in total defense following 2011.
In spite of Oklahoma’s occasional bloated defensive numbers in the Big 12 the S&P+ resume for Venables has been outrageously impressive and unassailable. He immediately moved Clemson up the rankings 39 spots in 2012 for a 34th place in the S&P+ rankings–by far his worst finish since the rankings began in 2005.
Outside of 2012, Venables has finished no worse than 17th in S&P+ and is currently on a 5-year run with the Tigers while placing no worse than 6th nationally, including the #1 current defense in the country, the top defense from 2014, and the #2 defense from 2017. Ten finishes in the Top 8 of defensive S&P+ rankings since 2007 is pretty absurd.
It’s possible that Notre Dame’s defense plays out of its mind and we’re looking at a low-scoring semi-final. Vegas has the over/under at 55.5 points right now and realistically the Irish will have to score 30 points to win. Clemson has only allowed 30 twice over the past 2 years, though. The addition of Brent Venables for 2012 has brought about a defensive stability that has allowed the Tigers to thrive at an elite level and will make it difficult for Notre Dame to break through to the title game.
If Venables’ defense is too good to score 30 points on, maybe we can just get Julian Love and Alohi Gilman to score 30 points on Clemson’s offense.
I’m in favor of that.
I laughed, but there’s probably truth in the humor that Notre Dame is going to need a momentum-changing defense/special teams huge play somewhere along the lines to pull the upset.
(Or at least settle for avoiding a bad mistake on offense, especially early to make it competitive).
From the tone of the last 2 articles, I get the feeling it’s
but we know the ending, amirite
An appropriate and necessary tone 🙂
Murtaugh, ND blogosphere’s wet blanket. I still haven’t read the “Worst losses in ND history” series.
You should’ve would have put some hair on your chest.
https://youtu.be/LN9vpWX7es0
I agree. I could never bring myself to read that series. I watch sports and follow blogs like this for enjoyment. If I wanted to be bummed out, I could read NDN. (Not comparing you to them, of course, Eric!)
Next week the “feel good about things” stories start ?
How about the perseverance of Jalen Hurts?
Psssht…Clemsoning isn’t extinct. It’s just gone into a hibernation mode. ND needs to bring it back out in style. LONG LIVE #CLEMSONING!!!!
with any luck the Clemsoning meme will be back in full force in 2019
Dabo is the most likable highly successful head coach in college football since who? Spurrier? Before that?
Petersen and Dabo are #1 and #2 for me.
No he said highly successful. Got em
But for real I would be interested how Petersen would be perceived on a bigger stage. He came off super whiny a couple years ago complaining about playing pac12 after dark games
I’ll take his side against the clown-show leadership of the Pac-12.
Yeah but wasn’t it him against espn. A sideline reporter brought out three cupcakes to show their non conference schedule and then herbie told him to be thankful they were on at all since he was complaining about playing late. 1 way to resolve it would be move to a premier program more centrally located in the country in 2-4 years…
How DARE you.
Snyder is a really good guy
Spurrier? Not sure if serious.
Totally. i always WTF?! when someone calls Spurrier “likeable” or a “good guy”. i’ve always called the dude, “Spuriless” as a pun on spurious.
I think Spurrier is pretty likable. At least, post-Florida OBC.
Pete Carroll?…..*dodges fruit*
boooooooooo booooooooo
(looks around)
(whispers)
that’s kind of fair
Of course it’s fair…..people love poodles.
I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
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Wow they’ve had a star defensive coordinator for 6 years. Is that unprecedented in modern football? It would seem like someone that successful would already have a head coaching job somewhere. And that’s a difficultly for sustaining success and continually getting good coordinators; but Clemson has bypassed that problem on defense.
Kirby Smart was the DC at Bama from 2008-2015.
But it’s rare for sure.
Yea so another elite program was able to do it. It would seem only the elite could do it anyway. Would you rather me the head coach of a good D 1 program or the DC for a top 3 program? That choice doesn’t exist anywhere else really.
Does John Chavis count? 6 years at LSU, 14 at Tennessee (as DC).
Or the lunchpail guy from Virginia Tech? Bud Foster?
But really, if you’re an excellent coach on the defensive side of the ball, how is that any kind of guarantee that you’ll be just as good spending one half to one third of the time coaching defense and one half to two thirds of the time coaching two other parts of the game that are quite a bit different.
If you’re really good at what you do and can make beaucoup bucks doing it, why go to the stress of switching to something different. I know, I know, egos gonna eeg.
Yea being a good coordinator doesn’t seem to mean much about being a good head coach.
“If you’re really good at what you do and can make beaucoup bucks doing it, why go to the stress of switching to something different. I know, I know, egos gonna eeg.”
I with you on this one. If it were me I’d probably prefer this kind of job. It’s just that most don’t end up taking that route. Most choose to give head coaching a chance when they get an opportunity they like. There’s only a handful we’ve named here who haven’t made that leap.