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CLEMSON -- It all seemed so new and wonderful this time three years ago. Even when there was pain from not closing the deal against Alabama the first time, it was overridden by the sensation that something truly special had just occurred.

They had given Dabo Swinney a big raise two years earlier, after an Orange Bowl victory over Ohio State that felt like the top of the mountain in five years under him.

The mere presence of Clemson in the 2015 playoff, and then the championship game, was surreal. So a few months later they ripped up that not-so-old contract and gave him a new one, and this is what he said in April of 2016: