CLEMSON - For Clemson, the storm clouds came twice on Sept. 19.
The first was on the field, where North Carolina jumped out to a 14-3 lead and sent a nervous Memorial Stadium into full-blown frustration. The second rolled in from the sky, forcing another weather delay in what has become an ugly early-season pattern for the Tigers.
By the time the siren sounded with 8:11 left and UNC threatening again at the goal line, the mood around Clemson had already turned sour. But after the pause, the Tigers found enough answers to escape with a 28-20 win in their ACC opener and move to 2-1 overall, 1-0 in conference play. North Carolina fell to 2-1 and 0-1 ACC.
It didn’t feel like a clean win for long stretches. Clemson’s own fans let the team hear it in the first half, with boos spilling down from the stands as the offense sputtered and the Tar Heels controlled the early tempo. Clemson’s best response before halftime was an 88-yard march that ended with a field goal, trimming UNC’s edge to 11.
Dabo Swinney kept the message simple when the pressure was mounting.
“Nothing matters but these eight minutes and 11 seconds,” Swinney said. “Second down in front of us. That's all that matters.”
When play resumed after the delay, Clemson looked more like a team ready to finish than one waiting for the next bad break. UNC settled for a field goal, and then the Tigers answered with a four-play, 68-yard drive that put running back Gideon Davidson in the spotlight. He scored his first career touchdown and finished with a 100-yard rushing performance.
From there, Clemson’s defense slammed the door again with a turnover on downs, setting up what should have been a clock-eating finish.
Should have been.
Swinney had one instruction in mind for Davidson if the lane opened up: slide and let time bleed away. He just didn’t pass that same message along to Tyler Brown, who took a reverse, found daylight and sprinted 34 yards to the end zone instead of going down. The touchdown pushed Clemson ahead 28-20 and left North Carolina with one minute to try to force a tie.
“There was part of me saying, ‘Go down, and the other part was like, ‘Aw, heck no,’” Swinney said. “‘Let’s score.’”
That score put the spotlight back on Clemson’s defense, which had one more job to do. UNC, whose offense rushed for 214 yards, drove into a fourth-and-1 and appeared poised for a ground-based answer. Swinney said he expected Bobby Petrino’s group to keep it on the ground.
Instead, Billy Edwards Jr. dropped back and launched a play-action shot downfield. Elliott Washington said all he saw was the man and the ball.
He made the play.
The interception helped seal a win that felt like a test of more than just execution. Swinney had said all preseason that Clemson needed real games to show what kind of team it was. He still didn’t hand out a final verdict afterward, but he pointed to those last eight minutes as proof the group was starting to figure itself out.
“For them to get it rolling and for them to see that, feel that, it just builds confidence and it builds belief, and that's a huge part of this game,” Swinney said.
The biggest individual leap came from Tait Reynolds. In his first start, and the earliest a Clemson true freshman has started at quarterback since Willie Jordan in 1975, Reynolds threw for 215 yards and a touchdown.
The box score told only part of the story. He was 12 for 20 for 76 yards in the first half, and he also underthrew a third-quarter pass to T.J.
Moore that ended up intercepted.
Swinney didn’t hide his frustration with Reynolds early, but by the end of the night the freshman had done enough to hold onto the job for now, especially with senior Christopher Vizzina sidelined and not dressed out while wearing a brace.
“If you can’t see Tait Reynolds and be excited, I don’t know what you’re looking at,” Swinney said.
Reynolds, for his part, said the delay itself was part of the learning curve.
“I came in from that weather delay, and I was like, man, there's new things all the time,” he said. “I haven't even seen that.”
Clemson still doesn’t know exactly what it is in 2026. It may not know for a while. But on a night that began with boos, a delay and another early scare, the Tigers at least found a way to survive.
“We weren't perfect, but we grew up and overcame a lot.”
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