ACC football record book: Led by 12 North Carolinians, 2011 Clemson team set new mark
Editor’s note: This is part of a 10-story series focusing on ACC football records.
CLEMSON, S.C. — Saying Clemson came out of nowhere to win the ACC championship in 2011 isn’t accurate, but the Tigers certainly hailed from somewhere in that zip code.
Today, Clemson lives on college football’s mountaintop in an exclusive community of the sport’s elite. If the 2011 season was the down payment on that mortgage, Clemson wrote the check with a record-setting, three-game stretch during the campaign’s first month.
In the span of 14 days, Clemson defeated the defending national champions, the 2011 ACC favorites and the defending ACC champions. All three were ranked, setting an ACC record as the first time in league history a member defeated three consecutive ranked opponents.
Twelve North Carolina players populated that roster, including two future high-round NFL Draft selections and several all-conference honorees. Half were members of what at the time was called Clemson’s best-ever recruiting class. One was a redshirt who would play for a national championship before his career was over.
That’s not a big surprise. With four schools in the league, the state of North Carolina has always been the heart of the ACC. Today, with the final story of our ACC Football Record Book series, we acknowledge that the conference’s records are peppered with native North Carolinians who ended up wearing the jerseys of schools from other states.
The 12 Clemson players count in that number, on a 10-4 team that had its flaws — losing 70-33 to West Virginia in the Orange Bowl — but did win an ACC title and ultimately got the ball rolling on a Tigers’ dynasty.
SLOW START
Clemson actually defeated four consecutive ranked opponents if Wofford’s FCS rank is included. The overmatched Terriers were biting larger than their bark the week before Clemson played host to defending national champion Auburn.
Wofford led 21-13 at halftime as new offensive coordinator Chad Morris struggled to find the right combination of plays to execute his high-octane scheme.
“The team actually got booed coming off the field at halftime,” said Tim Bourret, Clemson’s recently retired long-time sports information director.
Fayetteville native Eric Mac Lain was a member of Swinney’s touted 2011 recruiting class. The Jack Britt lineman had a front row seat to the dysfunction as a redshirt.
“Getting booed coming off the field at home? Well it was awesome,” Mac Lain said with a laugh. “Getting it together, figuring it out as a team, led to some hiccups.”
Clemson pulled out the win, 35-27, but more importantly appeared to figure out a few useful plays. Morris went back to the laboratory and came out with a brand-new bag of tricks and another Fayetteville native would play a key role.
PICKING UP SPEED
Terry Sanford alumnus Dwayne Allen had earned second-team all-conference honors following a sophomore season in which he caught 33 passes for 373 yards. Problem was, he had mustered just one touchdown.
With Clemson trailing 21-7 in the second quarter against No. 21 Auburn in Week 3, Allen came through with a 6-yard touchdown reception that seemed to ignite Morris’ sputtering engine.
Clemson just kept coming after that, knotting the game at 21 by halftime, then pulling away in the second half under a hail of Tajh Boyd passes.
The defending national champions’ 17-game win streak was over.
“I think at that time for little ol’ Clemson to do that to a big, bad SEC who had just won the national championship, it was an indicator,” Mac Lain. “Guys, we can do this.”
Allen finished with seven receptions for 80 yards and the momentum-shifting score that had sparked a 31-3 run.
The following week, Clemson greeted No. 11 Florida State. Playing without touted quarterback E.J. Manuel, the Seminoles held their own in the early going but Allen’s 12-yard touchdown pass from Boyd staked Clemson to a 21-10 halftime lead and the Tigers would remain in control in a 35-30 win.
Allen caught four passes for 67 yards and for the first time in his career could boast having touchdowns in consecutive games. The Tigers improved to 4-0.
“That was our getting-over-the-hill game because Florida State had just been beating us like a drum,” Mac Lain said.
Clemson’s first big road test came against its greatest ACC nemesis. Virginia Tech had dominated Clemson in the teams’ five previous meetings, winning by scores of 37-0, 31-11, 41-20, 24-7 and 41-23. Long-time Hokies coach Frank Beamer had never lost to the Tigers.
After four games with the spotlight squarely on the offense, blustery conditions in Blacksburg shifted the focus to Clemson’s defense. The Tigers’ defenders would not disappoint and Clemson would end its three-game statement with an exclamation point, 23-3.
“The fact that the defense had to step up and basically win the game and it was bad weather and a great home environment up there was something,” Mac Lain said. “For us to have the deck so stacked in Tech’s advantage, that was another acknowledgment this is a game we were supposed to lose and we won.”
PROMISED LAND
In the span of three weeks, Clemson had entirely changed the fortunes of its program. Ever since its glory days in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Tigers had been a team that could occasionally put an above-average product on the field. Winning eight and nine games had often been within reach but rarely materialized.
Clemson has won at least 10 games every year since 2011. They have made four national championship game appearances, beginning with the redshirt freshmen from that 2011 season, and have won two.
The 12 players from North Carolina played a huge role.
“It was a make-or-break year,” Bourret said. “That was a key three-game stretch and Virginia Tech in that time frame, Frank Beamer really had them going. … We beat the national champions on national television, scored 35 against Florida State and beat Virginia Tech by 20 points. That was pretty strong.”
Allen caught 50 passes for 598 yards and eight touchdowns and won the John Mackey Award as the nation’s top tight end. He was selected by Indianapolis in the third round of the ensuing NFL draft and would go on to win a Super Bowl ring with New England.
“He was a big reason why I came to Clemson,” Mac Lain said. “Growing up in Fayetteville, having played against him and seeing him develop into the player he was.”
Anson product Stephone Anthony started three games at linebacker in 2011 to launch a collegiate career that would see him earn all-ACC first-team honors and a spot as the Dick Butkus award semifinalist. He would be the other North Carolinian from that 2011 roster to get drafted when New Orleans picked him in the first round of the 2015 draft.
By the time Mac Lain’s career concluded, he owned a national championship appearance. The 46 wins he was a part of during his playing career was a team record that has been broken by another Tiger every season since. When he looks back on his career accomplishments, he says the year he didn’t play and saw Clemson do something that had never been done before meant everything.
“That was the foundation, the blue print,” he said. “The way to behave and not behave, to not have complacency. Without having that, without having experienced that as a freshman, no way. That was the foundation.”
THE SCHEDULE FOR THIS SERIES
JUNE 2 — Wake Forest’s Tanner Price has the ACC passing record by a left-handed quarterback.
JUNE 3 — The 2011 Clemson team, which became the first in ACC history to win three straight games against ranked opponents. That team had a bevy of kids from the state of North Carolina.
JUNE 3 — A quick roundup of other ACC Records held by players from North Carolina schools, and other major ACC records in general.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "ACC football record book: Led by 12 North Carolinians, 2011 Clemson team set new mark."