Kentucky came out swinging, but Tigers landed the last punch

Defensive line coaches Nick Eason and Chris Rumph celebrate with their players (Photo by Merrell Mann).

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Jan 01 07:00:05 GMT-04:00 2024

Prior to the start of Friday's bowl game, Kentucky came out swinging and gesturing, prompting someone to say that the Gator Bowl was more like a Super Bowl for the Wildcats. But it was Clemson holding the trophy at the end.

There was no doubt that Kentucky wanted to win this bowl game. Their star running back Ray Davis, who is headed to the NFL, stayed around to play for his teammates (and props to him). And there were indications that other players stayed to play because the opponent was Clemson.

Clemson? It was the same thing we hear every week: a nameless, faceless opponent. But for a Clemson program on a four-game winning streak, a fifth win was needed. After all of the adversity faced this season, this program desperately needed momentum heading into the offseason.

As the teams took the field for early pregame warmups – no pads yet – Kentucky players encroached on Clemson’s side of the field and started talking smack. It wasn’t long before Clemson defensive tackles coach Nick Eason and someone on the Kentucky staff were going jaw to jaw and had to be separated by game officials.

In the video we posted, you can see one Kentucky player making some kind of weird arm and hand signals to the Clemson players and coaches (honestly, it looked like some kind of weird dance from Napoleon Dynamite), and one of their players continually mimicked shooting guns (pregame and postgame).

The game was chippy from the outset, and I wondered if Clemson would find a way to match Kentucky’s energy without going overboard (and it was then I remembered what Miguel Chavis used to tell me about being fired up – that’s great until the first play, and you get hit in the mouth, and then it’s just football).

But this is a Clemson program that has taken shots over the last three seasons and, unlike the previous years during the fantastic run of College Football Playoff appearances, didn’t respond. The Wildcats returned the opening kickoff of the second for a touchdown and made big play after big play, but along the way, the Clemson defense forced three big turnovers, and the Clemson offense found its moxie while special teams found a way to make an impact.

When Kentucky scored with just over two minutes remaining, my mind went to this thought: With Deshaun Watson and Kelly Bryant and Trevor Lawrence (and even Chase Brice in a pinch), you knew Clemson would make the drive to win the game. You just knew it. The exciting part was just waiting to see how it unfolded. Since then? Not a lot of confidence.

And then a funny thing happened – Clemson’s offensive line, which had struggled much of the day – began to lean into a tired Kentucky defensive line. Quarterback Cade Klubnik found some confidence. Kentucky was no longer shooting off air guns or its mouth, the defense rocking back on its heels. There was a brief flurry of it when Klubnik was called for intentional grounding, but a 16-yard pass took the air out of that confidence while Phil Mafah’s bruising run flattened it. After that? It felt like Clemson was going to find a way.

After Klubnik’s pass to Jake Briningstool took the Tigers to the three-yard line, head coach Dabo Swinney called timeout. There wasn’t panic on the Clemson sideline. Offensive coordinator Garrett Riley looked Klubnik in the eyes and smiled, while Swinney and new offensive line coach Matt Luke told the line, “Look, we are going to run the ball right at them here and we are going to win this game.”

The Tigers lined up, and Klubnik handed it off to Mafah. Briningstool was lined up on the left side in the H-back spot and ran right but was a shade late to block the safety on the end of the line. The safety hit Mafah, and Briningstool was now caught up in the wash and propelled forward. So, he did what he could, grabbed Mafah around the shoulders, and pulled his teammate into the endzone for the score.

The Tigers converted the two-point conversion, and at that point, the only hand waving that mattered was the referee’s signal for a score and Klubnik (now standing on the Clemson bench) waving his arms in celebration at the Clemson faithful.

After the game, Swinney said this team made a decision at 4-4 to not give up and continue the fight. That fight continued against a determined Kentucky team, and the Tigers were left with a modest five-game winning streak that now stands as the longest in the ACC.

What does this portend for the off-season and next season? More on that later.