Deshaun Watson Has Earned a Vince Young Moment Against Alabama

TAMPA, Fla. — It goes against everything they believe and preach and fight for, day after day.

At Clemson, football is all about the team, not the individual. It's all about earning it, not deserving it.

Yet there's room for one sweet exception of selfishness and entitlement to those rules when it comes to Deshaun Watson.

"If anyone deserves anything," offensive coordinator Tony Elliott says, "I think Deshaun deserves to win it all."

The irony of that feel-good sentiment is that if Clemson is to win it all, Watson will have to earn it.

The most dynamic and dangerous player on the field for Monday night's national championship game has to play better than anyone else. The player who can change the course of a game with one throw or run has to elevate his teammates to do the uncommon.

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In other words, Watson needs to be Vince Young.

He needs to make this game all about him the way Young made the BCS National Championship Game all about V.Y. more than a decade ago.

"We couldn't win without Vince being the best player on the field," says former Texas coach Mack Brown. "Clemson might just need Deshaun to do the same thing."

You can't escape the comparison between Clemson this season and Texas in its 2005 national championship season, and you can't ignore how the best player on the field took over and ended one of the most dominant runs in college football history.

USC had won 34 straight games entering the national championship game that year. The Trojans won a national title in 2003 (Associated Press) and 2004 (BCS), were a heavy favorite to win another against the Longhorns and had a fiery coach (Pete Carroll) who was transcending the game.

(Sound familiar? Tide-like?)

Young, miffed about not winning the Heisman Trophy (USC's Reggie Bush did), countered by producing the game of a lifetime, playing better than anyone has on a stage that big. He threw for 267 yards and ran for 200 yards and three touchdowns, including the game-winning score on a 4th-and-the-season scramble from the 8-yard line with 19 seconds remaining.

They still talk about that game in Austin, still marvel at Young's sheer will to carry the team in every way imaginable.

It's only natural now to compare it to this year's championship game.

Alabama has won 26 straight games, and the Tide's run in coach Nick Saban's 10 years in Tuscaloosa is staggering. With one more win, Alabama will have won five of the last eight national titles—including two straight over Clemson.

Watson did all he could in last year's championship game—with 405 yards (and four TDs) passing and another 73 yards rushing, he broke Young's national championship game record for total yards—and Alabama still won.

"I just remember walking off the field last year and the confetti falling down on us for all the wrong reasons," Watson says.

So here we are again, with the same teams in the same situation and the harsh reality that as well as Watson played last year, it wasn't enough. Who cares if Saban compared him to Cam Newton or acknowledged his vaunted defense had no answer for Watson? Alabama still won.

That's why this offseason was different than any other for Watson. He was determined that this final season at Clemson—he's only a junior but is a lock to leave early for the NFL—would be on his terms, would be dictated by how he prepared and played.

He put on 16 pounds so he could absorb the punishment he'd take in the run game. He threw all offseason with receivers, including his favorite target Mike Williams—an elite NFL prospect who didn't play in last year's game because of a broken bone in his neck. And he took a full load of classes, setting himself up to take a lighter load this past fall and still graduate last month with a degree in communications studies.

That was the first of three goals Watson set for himself when he enrolled early at Clemson in January 2014: graduate in three years, win a national championship, then leave for the NFL.

Getting his college degree was a life moment he promised his mother he would attain before even thinking about playing in the NFL.

"My journey has been so special," Watson says. "It has been the best three years of my life. I've learned so much. I've grown so much—not just as a player, but as a person, a citizen, being in a community and helping others and inspiring others."

Year	W-L	Cmp	Att	Pct	Yds	TD	Int	Rating
2014	5-3	93	137	67.9	1,466	14	2	188.6
2015	14-1	333	491	67.8	4,109	35	13	156.3
2016	13-1	352	523	67.3	4,173	38	17	151.8

Now it's back to the national championship goal, before moving on to the NFL one.

A national championship "is something we've been waiting for 35 years," Watson says. "Being able to call myself national champion would be awesome."

The 1981 national title at Clemson was a surreal and unexpected magical ride. A championship this season, after years of building and strengthening the program and reaching milestone moments, would be more of a coronation than a surprise.

They've worked for this, and Watson was the last piece to the puzzle.

"We knew he was something special from day one," says Clemson coach Dabo Swinney. "Players like Deshaun don't come around often. He's the best big-game player I've ever been around."

No game—not even last year's national championship game—is bigger than Monday's rematch. And just like Young in 2005, Watson is playing both for his team and for that storied bronze trophy that went to someone else.

While he never will say he should have won the Heisman Trophy last year or this season, he has said numerous times that he feels like he is the best player in college football.

Don Juan Moore/Getty Images

If he's the best player on the field against Alabama this time around, if he can change the course of the game with a throw or a run or by willing his teammates to do the uncommon, he'll have the last word. Just like V.Y.

"Deshaun has done everything the right way," Elliott says. "A model student-athlete, a loyal teammate, a hard worker, a young man who will go out into the world and do great things. So yeah, maybe he does deserve it."

That doesn't mean he won't have to earn it.

Follow Matt Hayes on Twitter: @matthayescfb.