CLEMSON -- Late last September, Clemson was a few days from playing host to Florida State and it was considered a major chore because the Tigers weren't particularly good and the Seminoles seemed really good.

The popular context was that it was a portal-referendum game: Mike Norvell as the portal king vs. Dabo Swinney as the king of portal abstinence.

"If we win this game," someone close to Swinney told us at the time, "he might stand up on a table after and announce that he's never taking a portal player again."

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Obviously that wouldn't have happened.

But also obviously: A Clemson upset of the Noles came damned close to happening that afternoon at Death Valley.

FSU escaped, barely. But the portal-referendum victor wasn't barely crowned in the conversation that followed.

From Jordan Travis to Keon Coleman to others, some of the biggest plays that day were made by transfers. So it was natural and even fair to make that a central part of the story.

But -- and we have said this time and again -- the story is not binary based on one game.

The story is still evolving.

A year later the two ACC rivals (and lawsuit brethren) meet again, and one model has devolved.

Florida State is an absolute mess. The Seminoles are 1-4 after yesterday's 42-16 shellacking at SMU, and the scariest part is staring Norvell and everyone else down there right between the eyes:

They haven't yet played anyone that's really good.