Clemson's No. 4 ranking in the initial College Football Playoff poll drew plenty of jeers among the talking heads nationally earlier in the week.
Clemson fans joined the chorus Saturday night.
An open date gave this team extra time to recharge, and it felt like an ideal time because the calendar was turning to November.
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You know, the time of year when past great teams under Dabo Swinney revved up and started playing their best football at the most important time.
Championship phase?
Saturday it looked more like championship fazed as the Tigers came unglued in so many ways in a 35-14 throttling at the hands of Notre Dame.
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This game was supposed to be about grown-man football, a quality that has brought a lot of trophies to Clemson.
Sixty minutes of being physically and even mentally overwhelmed showed the Tigers have a lot of growing up to do.
And not just at quarterback, a position that went into further disarray after DJ Uiagalelei failed to flush his poor outing against Syracuse.
The defense couldn't get off the field and allowed 263 soul-sucking rushing yards on 47 carries as both Logan Diggs and Audric Estime both surpassed the 100-yard mark while punishing the second and third levels of Wes Goodwin's unit.
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Oh, and special teams chipped in too by allowing an early blocked punt for a touchdown that set the tone for the night.
Clemson's 14-game winning streak, the longest in the nation, is toast. And certainly the Tigers' chances of reaching the playoff absorbed a massive gut punch at the very least.
Bottom line, this 8-1 team doesn't look like a group that belongs in the CFP conversation.
And after they were outclassed by an unranked team that had suffered home losses to Stanford and Marshall, it's reasonable to ask if they even belong in the Top 10.
The 14-point deficit against Syracuse was not a brief hiccup. It was more a preview of what would come for an entire game in South Bend.
The offense totaled 281 yards against the Irish, with just 90 on the ground. And even that total-yardage figure was deceptive, as 150 came on the final two drives.
After Swinney made the call to pull Uiagalelei for the second consecutive game, any illusions about Cade Klubnik being the savior were quickly wiped away as Klubnik made a poor decision deep in his own territory and threw a pick that Notre Dame turned into a touchdown to make it 21-0.
Uiagalelei came back in and threw a pick-6 after a drive aided by multiple Notre Dame penalties pushed the ball to the Irish's 19-yard line.
Freshman Benjamin Morrison, a corner that Clemson came in wanting to pick on, easily intercepted Uiagalelei's underthrow of Joseph Ngata and took it back 96 yards the other way.
Uiagalelei finally provided a bit of a spark in leading the offense on an 11-play, 75-yard drive to put Clemson on the scoreboard at 28-7.
But then Notre Dame's offense trotted onto the field and resumed playing keep-away from the Tigers, pounding the rush all the way down the field before Drew Pyne found Michael Mayer for a 17-yard touchdown to punctuate the 11-play, 75-yard drive.
This was much like Notre Dame's possession that ended the first half -- an 11-play, 78-yard touchdown march that strongly suggested to Clemson's defense that this isn't 2018 anymore.
So much of Swinney's power is in closing ranks and rallying his team against the doubters on the outside.
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Swinney probably found himself agreeing with those doubters while watching this undressing.
Two years ago, Clemson lost in the same stadium and it felt like an upset.
This one felt like an exposure.
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