ESCAPE FROM CHAPEL HILL

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When you've won two national titles in three years, and 19 consecutive games, and you've laid waste to the rest of the ACC for four years running, you begin to think some things in life are automatic.

Saturday, when Clemson came numbingly close to experiencing total Chapel Hill hell, was a sobering lesson that wins are not automatic, let alone dominating wins.

Dabo Swinney said it all when he used his hat to cover his mouth during his postgame embrace with Mack Brown.

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He told Brown that North Carolina out-played and out-coached Clemson. And there isn't an orange-clad soul who would disagree with that statement.

Swinney pointed out that this team has 80 freshmen and sophomores. It's a group that's still learning as it goes in some ways, so maybe we should've seen this coming. Maybe we should've heeded the lesson from two years ago when an unfocused Clemson team was dispatched by Syracuse the week before an open date.

But that's a hard sell when you're a four-touchdown favorite facing a team that's just lost to Appalachian State. It's a hard sell when we're talking about an offense blessed with the talent Clemson's possesses.

It was thought entering the season that this team would experience nothing other than smooth pre-playoff sailing as long as Trevor Lawrence and his cast of offensive studs were around. It was thought that offensive pyrotechnics were going to make up for any regression by the defense after the loss of so many studs on that side of the ball.

Five games in, we know otherwise. We know this offense is performing below its capabilities and still trying to find itself after it produced just 21 points and 331 yards at Kenan Stadium.

The ACC, which to date doesn't have anyone remotely close to Clemson's class, wasn't supposed to put up any resistance against the offense that obliterated Alabama and Notre Dame in last year's playoff.

How is Swinney going to keep his team sharp over the course of a bunch of blowouts in late September, October and November? How much are the fans going to be engaged when every game is over at halftime? How much does it matter that the Heisman candidacies of Lawrence and Travis Etienne might be hurt with them exiting so early in ACC laughers?

These were all seemingly viable questions before the trip to Chapel Hill.

Emphasis on "seemingly."

As the Tigers walked off the field with a one-point victory, a different set of questions persisted.

What in the heck was up with the offensive line and all those false-start penalties? Why was Lawrence so off so often? Why does this offense look so ordinary, having produced four three-and-outs (and that's not counting a two-play drive that ended in a lost Etienne fumble)? How can this offense produce fewer points and total yards against North Carolina than Appalachian State (34, 385), Wake Forest (24, 436) and Miami (25, 488)?

Over the next two weeks preceding an Oct. 12 visit from Florida State, these questions and more will be asked and contemplated plenty around Tigertown. Beyond Clemson, no doubt national pundits will cite this escape as Exhibit A for why the top team to close 2018 is not the top team after five weeks of 2019.

And all the aforementioned questions seem fair. Inside Clemson's football fortress, the questions Swinney is going to be asking of his assistants and players are no doubt going to be tougher than the ones being asked outside.

The head coach keeps an index card in his pocket on the sideline during games, and he uses a red ink pen to write down the bad plays. He probably needed a few more index cards and maybe even more ink Saturday.

Having a bunch of false-start penalties is really bad. But what made it worse in this instance was multiple players jumping at the same time as they tried to confront North Carolina's varied pressures.

And even though the defense saved the day on the two-point conversion and came up with some stops in the second half, they had some uncharacteristic moments too. Swinney had to burn a timeout just before that final touchdown when the Heels had a receiver split wide and totally uncovered.

Lawrence was off on quite a few throws, and you could argue that's going to happen. You could also submit that without that guy Clemson loses this game by double digits, because he came up with some big plays and was able to slither away from pressure numerous times.

A quarterback power by Lawrence for a 3-yard touchdown tied the score at 14 with 33 seconds left in the first half. A 38-yard scoring toss to Tee Higgins put the Tigers up for the first time, 21-14, with 9:54 left in the game.

And heck, even if the defense doesn't come up with that frantic stop on the two-point conversion the game isn't over. There's still 1:17 on the clock, and that's plenty of time for No. 16 to work some magic with Clemson needing a field goal to win.

Then again, B.T. Potter yanked a 40-yard try on Clemson's first drive of the game so maybe Lawrence would've had to engineer a touchdown drive.

It was just one of those days. The most emphatic signal of that was when Etienne lost that fumble with 10:33 left in the first half.

On Clemson's previous possession, the offense drove 89 yards in 10 plays and tied the score on a 13-yard run by Etienne right down the Tar Heels' throats.

The defense forced a three-and-out, and the offense was getting back to power football.

Etienne ran behind John Simpson between the tackles for a 9-yard gain. And then they gave it to him again, and he had a first down near midfield before the ball was poked away.

North Carolina turned around and capitalized on great field position by scooting 42 yards in four plays for a touchdown that put Clemson down 14-7.

It was thought that the Tar Heels would have to play a perfect game to win. Brown's team did not play a perfect game.

Yes, folks, your No. 1 Clemson Tigers were that bad at times Saturday afternoon.

They escaped with a win, but they didn't escape questions.

They didn't escape their coach telling the other coach that his players and coaches were better after a game that was thought to be automatic.

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