Clemson football: pressure’s on

By Andy Bitter

Published: July 20, 2008

GREENSBORO, Ga. — The pressure’s nothing new. Cullen Harper is used to it. He is, after all, the starting quarterback at Clemson, home to a football-crazy fan base that would probably be quick to offer two thoughts about their beloved Tigers heading into a season in which they are the presumptive ACC favorites:

1. They have not won an ACC title since 1991, and …

2. If they don’t do it this year, they’re never going to do it.

“I’ve heard it a lot,” Harper said at the ACC Kickoff at Reynolds Plantation on Sunday. “We heard it a lot last year and the year before that. I think it’s positive.

“It’s time for Clemson to kind of step up and put ourselves back on the map as one of the top teams in the ACC.”

Sound familiar? Absolutely. The Tigers have been touted as ACC contenders since the conference adopted the two-division format in 2005, but they have never made it to the championship game, let alone won a title.

In 2005, they finished fourth in the Atlantic Division and, despite winning six of their last seven, were relegated to the Champs Sports Bowl.

In 2006, they started 7-1 and vaulted to a No. 10 national ranking before getting manhandled at Virginia Tech and losing four of their last five.

But last year might have been the most painful. With a berth to the ACC title game on the line at home against Boston College, Clemson lost 20-17, undone by a multitude of fourth-quarter mistakes, the most memorable being a perfectly thrown pass by Harper that slipped through receiver Aaron Kelly’s hands in the end zone in the waning seconds.

Harper has a simple explanation for why the Tigers haven’t lived up to their billing.

“I think the last couple years for some reason there’s been this expectation that Clemson should be at the top when I’m not exactly sure we deserved that,” Harper said. “Honestly, I think this is the first year that we’ve really had what it takes to be considered an ACC championship caliber team.”

The Tigers return 16 starters, seven on both sides of the ball and both specialists. James Davis, who flirted with the NFL, and C.J. Spiller form one of the most explosive running back combinations in the country. They return most of a unit that ranked ninth nationally in total defense last year and 10th in scoring defense.

And then there’s Harper. A year ago, he was fending off questions of whether he could beat out highly-touted freshman Willy Korn. Now, he’s considered one of the ACC’s best, fresh off a 2,991-yard season that included 27 touchdown passes, a mark that eclipsed the school record set by such Clemson luminaries as Woody Dantzler and Charlie Whitehurst.

“Last year, people were just writing me off,” Harper said. “They didn’t think I was even going to last three games. And for it to be where it is this year, it’s quite an honor. I’m just thankful.”

The son of Jeff Harper, an offensive lineman who helped Georgia win its last national title in 1980, Cullen never garnered much interest from the Bulldogs coming out of Sequoyah High in suburban Atlanta.

He instead chose Clemson but had a long layoff before seeing any action. A shoulder injury cut short his senior season of high school after two games and he redshirted in 2005, his first year with the Tigers. He backed up Will Proctor and saw limited action in 2006 before breaking out last year, leading the ACC in quarterback efficiency (141.0).

A shoulder injury suffered during the BC game derailed what had been a promising season. He partially tore his labrum on a touchdown run that briefly gave the Tigers the lead and recently admitted he probably wouldn’t have played in the ACC title game had Clemson qualified.

Harper had arthroscopic shoulder surgery following a regular season-ending win against to South Carolina but wasn’t 100 percent against Auburn for the Chick-fil-A bowl, in which he threw for a season-low 104 yards in a 23-20 overtime loss.

He swears he’s fine now — “I feel like I’m throwing the ball better than I ever have,” he said — which bodes well for the Tigers’ chances, if they can patch up an offensive line that lost four starters and avoid the yearly pitfall that always seems to hold them back.

That’s not an easy task with a schedule that includes a season-opener against Alabama at the Georgia Dome, road games at Wake Forest, Boston College and Florida State, and the usually unpredictable season-ender against in-state rival South Carolina.

Still, Harper thinks that for once the Tigers legitimately have the pieces in place.

“It’s our time to step up,” Harper said. “It’s kind of put up or shut up, honestly.”