Too close for comfort

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AUBURN, Ala. -– When pressed on why he opted against a 34-yard field goal that would have put the game away, Dabo Swinney reeled off a list of wild and crazy historical happenings at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

As it turned out, Swinney and Clemson were breathtakingly close to finding themselves on that list of victims.

Winning an opener on the road, at night in a raucous SEC environment is difficult. That’s a fact. And the fact is, Swinney and the Tigers should ultimately be happy that they walked away in the wee hours with a 1-0 record.

“Great teams get better,” Swinney said. “And I think that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

The Tigers might well find their stride and start tearing through everyone the way that most of the college football world expected they would in 2016. Heck, an extremely shaky win at Louisville in the third game last season didn’t keep them from doing remarkable and unprecedented things from that point forward.

But when you’ve just escaped something like that and you’re trying to figure out what in the world happened and why in the world it happened, the prevailing emotion is not to think about the long term.

The more reflexive reaction is to gasp at how close a game that seemed in control for so long was that close to becoming another answered Prayer at Jordan-Hare.

Auburn’s luck has turned the other way since Gus Malzahn’s team benefited from all that stupendously good fortune in 2014 with how-did-that-happen miracles against Georgia and Alabama. But when you saw Auburn zip down the field with no timeouts to get in position for two Sean White heaves into the end zone, you started to think this was going to be another chapter – this one at Clemson’s expense.

Christian Wilkins was on the field for that final toss, the one that was batted around for what seemed like 14 times before Jadar Johnson finally swiped it to the turf. Wilkins’ defense had looked so dominant, particularly up front, for most of the game. But as the offense sputtered and failed to finish drives to keep Auburn sort of in it, the defense showed some cracks. And now, after a silly personal-foul penalty by Ben Boulware set up Auburn’s touchdown that trimmed Clemson’s lead to six points, after Clemson drove down the field and Wayne Gallman ran out of bounds and Swinney opted against the field goal, Wilkins and everyone else stood helplessly and watched.

A fundamental part of Swinney’s program is controlling what you can control, and now it was almost all out of Clemson’s control.

“For me, at that point, I couldn’t do anything about it,” Wilkins said. “It’s just like, ‘Please hit the turf. Get down and no one catch it.’ It’s really out of our hands at that point.”

And then, this:

“I thought it was going to get caught, honestly.”

The fact that Clemson was in that position – out of control and praying for a ball to hit the turf and end the dang thing - is still so startling, even hours later. Swinney’s team walked into the locker room at halftime having outgained Auburn 233-38, and with a 12-3 advantage in first downs.

There was no doubt in the statistics, or the view of anyone watching, that Clemson was the far better team. But on the scoreboard the Tigers were up one score, at just 10-3.

Add in a sputtering third quarter by the offense, and you had a game that was mostly in Clemson’s control after three quarters up 13-3, but not totally in its control.

When you let an inferior team hang around long enough in an opening game on its home field, you shouldn’t be surprised if you have to sweat out some excruciatingly anxious moments at the end.

But there was surprise at the end of this one because of Swinney’s decision against sending out Greg Huegel to kick the field goal – even if he did clank an extra point earlier. If Gallman doesn’t run out of bounds on third down, it probably doesn’t matter because Auburn was out of timeouts and the clock keeps ticking.

As Swinney was evaluating his options facing fourth-and-4 at Auburn’s 17, he chose to keep the offense on the field because crazy things can happen here. A blocked kick, a scoop and a run the other way and a devastated coach is being asked why he didn’t keep his offense on the field.

But a crazy thing happened anyway. Swinney and his players considered themselves fortunate it was merely a Scare at Jordan-Hare.

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