Return to Glory: The Story of Clemson's Historic 2015 Season

By The Greenville News

Return to Glory is the inside story of Clemson’s magical 2015 football season, featuring stunning photography, stories, analysis and commentary from the award-winning journalists of The Greenville News. There was no holding back the Tigers in 2015. Behind quarterback Deshaun Watson and a stout defense, Coach Dabo Swinney’s team emerged as one of the nation’s top teams with statement wins over Notre Dame and Florida State before topping North Carolina in the ACC Championship game. They wrapped up the regular season as the nation’s only undefeated team and earned the No. 1 seed in the College Football playoff, where they topped favored Oklahoma 37-17 to set up the championship matchup against Alabama in the desert. This commemorative edition traces the story from the season opener against Wofford where Watson made his return to the playing field for the first time since injury the previous November, through the closing seconds against the Fighting Irish in the rain, to the rivalry week win over the Gamecocks to the nail-biting drama of the College Football Playoff. Also included are profiles of Watson, Swinney, defensive end Shaq Lawson, running back Wayne Gallman, and more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triumph Books
• Release date: Jan 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781633195783

Book preview

Deshaun Watson throws a pass during Clemson’s Dec. 31 win over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. The Tigers beat the Sooners 37-17.

Contents

Introduction by Jim Rice

Deshaun Watson

Clemson vs. Wofford

Ben Boulware and Mackensie Alexander

Clemson vs. Appalachian State

Clemson vs. Louisville

Gallman’s Emergence Bolsters Tigers’ Backfield

Clemson vs. Notre Dame

Entering an Exclusive Club

Clemson vs. Georgia Tech

Time for Clemsoning to Exit Vocabulary

Clemson vs. Boston College

Clemson vs. Miami

Clemson vs. North Carolina State

Clemson vs. Florida State

Wayne Gallman

Clemson vs. Syracuse

Clemson vs. Wake Forest

Clemson vs. South Carolina

Shaq Lawson

ACC Championship Game

Un-Four-Gettable

Dabo Swinney

Orange Bowl

Actions Speak Louder than Words

College Football Playoff National Championship Game

Clemson Will Be Back

Introduction by Jim Rice

In looking back on a magical season, how does one pick one moment to define it?

The Clemson University football season began on a sun-splashed afternoon in early September in Death Valley, endured a pair of Saturdays in which it seemed the rain would never end and concluded deep into a January night in the Arizona desert. The journey included two trips to the tip of the Florida peninsula and another nearly to Canada.

And though the season ended with a heartbreaking five-point loss to Alabama in the College Football Playoff Championship Game, that setback doesn’t erase the memories of the 14 victories, which equaled the most in Football Bowl Subdivision history. Some of the wins were convincing, like the midseason midafternoon rout of the Hurricanes. Others had their share of scares, like the Halloween night escape in Raleigh.

There were games in which the Tigers had to hold on at the end, and a couple in which they had to come from behind.

There was the night Clemson conquered the most famous program in college football and the evening that you knew the streak of victories had finally stirred the nation to see what you had seen all along and to give the Tigers the No. 1 ranking.

So when you gather this year — or next year, or perhaps 34 years from now — with other Clemson fans how do you choose the moment you’ll rank as THE defining moment in the 2015 season?

Fans celebrate the Tigers’ win over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. With the win, Clemson advanced to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.

Return to Glory will make that choice easier. The Greenville News and GreenvilleOnline.com witnessed every moment of the historic season, and the accounts and observations of reporters Scott Keepfer and Mandrallius Robinson and the photographs of Bart Boatwright have been collected in this book to keep all of the moments close at hand and heart.

Return to Glory also recognizes the personalities that made the season so memorable:

• The record-setting quarterback who was never rattled as he searched for a receiver and the cornerback who was always rattling receivers.

• The running back compared to a locomotive and the linebacker who regularly derailed running backs.

• The former walk-on wideout who kept making clutch catches and the defensive end who clutched opponents in the backfield more often than anyone else in the country.

• And there was the coach who introduced BYOG to the national lexicon and then told the nation that Clemsoning was banished. And later he invited Tiger Nation to a pizza party.

My defining moment?

Sept. 26, the night of the unrelenting rain when a hard-fought victory appeared about to be washed away, the moment when Carlos Watkins stops Notre Dame two yards and two points short.

That moment is recorded in this book. And so is yours. Read and enjoy and remember.

Jim Rice, Sports Editor

Deshaun Watson

4 | Quarterback

New Home Altered Life’s Course for Tigers Quarterback

By Scott Keepfer • July 26, 2015

There are moments in life when fate steps into the picture and changes things entirely, for better or worse.

For Deshaun Watson, that watershed moment — for the better — arrived inconspicuously when he was 9 years old.

He had no idea that the Habitat for Humanity information card he discovered in the bottom of the trick-or-treat bag he’d received at a local church Halloween festival would alter his life’s course, but it did.

Young Deshaun took the card home to his mother, DeAnn, who took the next step.

My mom decided to fill out the papers, then she went to a meeting, and that’s when everything started, Deshaun said.

It started at the right time.

Growing up, I was in a government apartment, Deshaun said. I was a little kid running around the neighborhood, hanging out with all kinds of people.

Not all of whom had Deshaun’s best interests in mind.

It wasn’t the best place, Deshaun said.

When DeAnn informed her sister-in-law, Sonia, that they’d been approved for a Habitat for Humanity home and that she’d be contributing 300 work hours toward the project, Sonia was skeptical.

DeAnn was a single parent and she wanted to have a home for her children, Sonia said. "She always worked and wanted what was best for her kids.

But I said, ‘You don’t know nothing about building no house, girl!’ And she said, ‘Yes, I do.’

Even if she didn’t, DeAnn learned in a hurry. She hammered nails and painted and cleaned up and did whatever she was instructed to do.

Deshaun Watson strikes the Heisman pose with the ACC Championship trophy after the Tigers’ 45-37 win over North Carolina in the ACC Championship Game.

She was working for hours and hours after her (regular) work hours, Deshaun said.

Deshaun, who even as a youngster had informed his mother on a daily basis that someday he’d put her in a house,