Home heartbreak: Clemson falls to No. 4 FSU, dealing big blow to Tigers’ season

For the last two weeks, coach Dabo Swinney has been insisting Clemson football is still a top-tier team with all of the Tigers’ 2023 goals still ahead of them.

It’s time to adjust those expectations.

Star Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis connected with wide receiver Keon Coleman for a 24-yard touchdown pass on the first drive of overtime and No. 4 FSU stopped Clemson on the following possession to escape Memorial Stadium with a 31-24 win on Saturday.

The Tigers put up a valiant fight in their biggest test of the season and led by 10 points in the second quarter, but little mistakes stacked up and Clemson (2-2, 0-2 ACC) ended the afternoon with a second loss. The result all but eliminates Clemson from College Football Playoff contention four games into the season because no team has ever made that four-team field with two losses since the CFP began in 2014.

After the Seminoles (4-0, 2-0 ACC) scored on the first possession of OT, Clemson went four plays and 9 yards with quarterback Cade Klubnik overthrowing wide receiver Beaux Collins on a 4th-and-2 slant pass to seal FSU’s win.

“We’ve got our back against the wall,” Swinney said. “We’re back in here (Sunday) as staff and Monday as a team … Long season ahead, lotta opportunity ahead. Heart breaks for our team because this is a great team and great group of young men. … It’s a tough one to lose but we did.”

The Seminoles were billed as the Tigers’ top ACC competitor all offseason and now have a signature win to prove it. FSU, led by coach Mike Norvell, hadn’t beaten Clemson since 2015 or won in Memorial Stadium in 2013.

But they got a field storming Saturday a decade in the making while Swinney’s team fell to 3-5 in its last eight games against Power Five teams dating back to a blowout at Notre Dame last November after a 8-0 start to the 2022 season.

Since then, Clemson has beaten Miami, Louisville and UNC (in the 2022 ACC title game) but lost critical contests to South Carolina, Tennessee, Duke and FSU, casting further doubt around the state of a program that made six straight College Football Playoffs from 2015-20 but now finds itself tied for last place in the ACC in late September.

Game recap

Playing in front of a sold-out Memorial Stadium, Clemson met Florida State’s energy from the start and led 3-0 after one quarter — the result of a long, gutsy drive that included a 4th and 1 conversion run from running back Phil Mafah.

Responsible for those points was Jonathan Weitz, the former walk-on kicker who rejoined the team this week after Swinney called him and asked if he’d come back for a fifth season in lieu of starting kicker Robert Gunn III’s continued struggles.

Weitz, who was taking Clemson graduate school classes remotely from his hometown of Charleston, answered the call and six days later gave the Tigers an early lead against the No. 4 team in the country.

The second quarter was a shootout, with Klubnik and Travis alternating clean possessions. Both quarterbacks had a short passing touchdown and a short rushing touchdown in that period, with Weitz’s field goal proving to be the difference in Clemson’s 17-14 halftime lead.

Klubnik avoided turnovers, threw with conviction and spread the ball around down one of his top receivers in Antonio Williams. Missing their shifty slot man, the Tigers got big players from others in the wide receiving corps including veteran Beaux Collins, true freshman Tyler Brown and a finally healthy Troy Stellato.

A week after a heated sideline exchange with his position coach, running back Will Shipley also got going and caught a touchdown pass to put Clemson up 17-7 with 2:12 before halftime — usually a good indicator of success under Swinney.

The Tigers entered the game 83-1 in his tenure when leading by 10-plus points at any point in the first half, per the ABC broadcast, with the only loss coming at home last season to rival South Carolina.

But Travis and FSU’s star-heavy offense didn’t make things easy.

Star receivers Keon Coleman (who caught a second-quarter touchdown pass) and Johnny Wilson and former South Carolina tight end Jaheim Bell were productive all afternoon, and Travis danced around to make play after play — to the point where Swinney criticized defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin’s lack of blitz calls and preference for 3-man rushes during his halftime TV interview.

Travis led Florida State on three straight scoring drives to take the team from down trailing 17-7 to tied 17-17 with Clemson early in the third quarter — and it very well could’ve been three TD drives had an illegal formation not nullified an FSU 4th-and-1 conversion. That drive ended with a long field instead.

Klubnik showed major improvement Saturday — especially on a third-quarter touchdown drive to put the Tigers up 24-17, which featured his best throw of the day to tight end Jake Briningstool — but once again found himself on the wrong end of the field thanks to a critical turnover that wasn’t entirely his fault.

After hanging tough in the pocket and finding Briningstool to set up a 1-yard Shipley touchdown with 3:32 left in the third quarter, Klubnik got rocked by an unblocked defender on the next drive (the broadcast team blamed it on a missed assignment from running back Phil Mafah) and fumbled in plus territory.

Seminoles linebacker Kalen DeLoach recovered his own forced fumble and took it back 56 yards for a touchdown to tie the game 24-24 entering the fourth quarter and execute the most dramatic momentum swing on an afternoon full of them.

Clemson’s defense forced four consecutive second-half punts but the offense couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain, with the team playing conservative on its last possession of the fourth quarter after getting in the red zone. That ended with Weitz shanking a 29-yard go-ahead field goal.

The Tigers’ defense (two sacks, five tackles for loss) somehow made it five stops in a row after forcing FSU into a turnover on downs after what looked like a promising 2-minute drill. But Clemson’s offense played conservative once again, allowing the clock run out after Shipley ran for 13 yards to the FSU 48-yard line.

Florida State scored on the second play of overtime and stopped Clemson minutes later to secure its first win in Death Valley in 2013 and firmly establish itself as the team to beat in the ACC this year.

Next Clemson game

Who: Clemson at Syracuse

When: noon next Saturday, Sept. 30

Where: JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, N.Y.

TV: ABC