Jordan Travis has spent far too long hearing the noise that No. 4 Florida State cannot beat Clemson.
That has changed now after Travis threw a game winning touchdown pass in overtime to vault the Seminoles to a long-sought victory over the rival Tigers.
Keon Coleman caught the 24-yard touchdown pass from Travis in overtime and the Seminoles followed that up with a defensive stand to halt a seven-game losing streak to Clemson with a 31-24 victory that sparked a Death Valley celebration nine years in the making.
“I had tears coming down in the locker room,” said Travis, the sixth-year quarterback that started his collegiate career at the University of Louisville.
Florida State had surrendered its position as the ACC’s power program to the Tigers. Clemson had won seven of the past eight league championships and national titles in 2016 and 2018.
Now, it looks like the Seminoles are ready to reclaim what is rightfully theirs and jump back into the top spot.
“We come here with that atmosphere and had adversity over the course of the game, all things you expect,” Florida State coach Mike Norvell said. “The end of this game, it was really special. The things I was most proud of, I told our players, was they put their heart on display.”
Travis also threw for another touchdown and ran for a score for the Seminoles (4-0, 2-0 Atlantic Coast Conference), who had not beaten Clemson (2-2, 0-2) since an overtime victory in 2014. He has now accounted for 82 touchdowns in his career to move past Chris Weinke (1997-2000) as No. 1 in program history.
FSU linebacker Kalen DeLoach forced a fumble by Cade Klubnik and scooped it up and took it to the house for a 56-yard touchdown return to tie things at 24-all with 31 seconds left in the third quarter.
“I saw it,” DeLoach said. “And I did what I could do.”
Florida State trailed by as many as 10 twice in the first half.
Clemson had an opportunity to take a late lead with 1:47 left in the fourth quarter, but place kicker Jonathan Weitz, a graduate student who left the team before the season only to return on Monday after the Tigers were experiencing glaring issues in their kicking game, missed a 29-yard field goal attempt wide left.
“When I hit it, I thought I hit it good,” Weitz said. “When I looked up, it’s dying left.”
Given a second chance, Travis and the Seminoles would not fold. Travis lofted a high-arcing pass that Coleman caught in stride and a hush went over the raucous Death Valley crowd on the first extra possession.
Clemson failed to get a first down on its possession when Klubnik’s fourth-and-2 pass sailed wide of the mark and Florida State’s players sprinted to celebrate on the field where the program had not won since 2013.
Clemson had only lost twice in 10 years at Death Valley since the Seminoles and quarterback Jameis Winston’s memorable, 51-14 slaughtering of the Tigers in 2013.
Klubnik passed for 283 yards and a touchdown and ran for a score. But he coughed the ball up for the third time in four games, this one proving costly.
“We played our butt off,” Klubnik said. “We’ve just got to learn how to finish.”
The Tigers started out at No. 9 in the preseason rankings, slid down and eventually out of the poll completely after a 28-7 loss in Week 1 to unranked Duke. Three weeks of hearing their season was over obviously rankled feathers of the defending ACC champions and they had their most effective offensive performance this season.
But they bogged down late and after having a third-and-1 in overtime, could not get a yard to keep the game going.
Weitz had been Clemson’s back-up kicker for four seasons, before calling it quits this year. He got a call from coach Dabo Swinney at his home in Charleston last Sunday, asking him to rejoin the team, and returned Monday. Weitz had been working on a graduate degree online.
He got the Tigers’ scoring started with a 30-yard field goal. He had made just three extra points in his four seasons with the team before pursuing a job in finance.
Florida State: The Seminoles overcame perhaps their biggest ACC hurdle to supplant Clemson as the league heavyweight. If Florida State can continue to show the grit and toughness it displayed in raucous Death Valley, they will be a strong bet to be playing for their first ACC conference crown since 2014.
Clemson: The Tigers were desperate for a win here to get themselves back in the ACC and College Football Playoff chase. Instead, they have gotten two losses in September for the second time in three seasons and will need conference chaos to break out like never before for any chance to play for a league title.
Travis said Clemson’s choice of one-on-one coverage against Johnny Wilson and Keon Coleman got him angry. The two receivers combined for 10 receptions and 180 yards with Coleman catching two touchdowns.
“I feel like we were disrespected all day. When you put one-on-one against Johnny Wilson and Keon Coleman, I feel like you have no respect for either the receivers or the quarterback.”
Florida State has a bye week, then starts a three-game homestand with Virginia Tech on October 7.
Clemson travels to Syracuse to take on the Orange on Saturday.
