CHARLOTTE — Dabo Swinney glared into an ESPN camera to deliver a warning to the College Football Playoff selection committee, not about his team but the one his team just beat.
“Listen,” he said, “that’s a playoff football team. SMU better be in the dang playoffs.”
It is not often that a coach, immediately after a heart-pounding victory, not just praises but lobbies on behalf of his opponent. But on Saturday night, in this new, odd playoff expansion world, that’s what happened here just before the clock struck midnight on the east coast.
The story on this night should be how Clemson won the ACC championship game: in a wild, furious final few seconds, on the foot of freshman kicker Nolan Hauser, a Charlotte metro-area native whose title game-record 56-yard field goal as time expired split the uprights and sparked an orange-coated eruption at Bank of America Stadium.But there’s another story here, perhaps one that is more important: With its 34-31 win over SMU, Clemson became the first-ever College Football Playoff bid stealer. For some team — SMU or Alabama — the bubble has popped. And for the ACC’s football dynasty — the Clemson Tigers — a playoff spot, improbable just a week ago, is secured.
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