There were two minutes left and 68 yards between Deshaun Watson and a national championship comeback victory against mighty Alabama, and not a single soul on the Clemson sideline, or in the Clemson huddle, was sweating it.
“When we looked up at the clock and saw there was two minutes left, we knew there was a good chance we could go win this thing, and everybody in the huddle felt the same way,” Clemson assistant coach/quarterbacks and recruiting coordinator Brandon Streeter said by phone.
“Before the season, Coach [Dabo] Swinney asked everybody in the program to pick a word for themselves to help encourage them and help them get through the season. And Deshaun’s word was ‘legendary.’
“And so, he kind of kept that word throughout the season, and then, the last series in the huddle before we took the field, he looked at all the guys in the huddle and said, ‘Hey, fellas, let’s go be legendary.’ ”
And the legend of Deshaun Watson was sealed when he hit Hunter Renfrow with the 2-yard touchdown pass with one second left for an epic 35-31 victory.
Now Watson stands days away from carrying his legend into the NFL, following a legendary comeback from a fourth-and-long childhood: living with his siblings without a father figure in government housing, playing pickup football games with gang members and drug dealers outside 815 Harrison Square, before his mother, Deann, found a way to find them a home and the hope that accompanies it through Habitat for Humanity. There was more to overcome as well.
“I believe he was about 14 or 15, in his freshman year, his mom developed tongue cancer, and she had to go over to a big hospital in Atlanta and stay there for about six or seven months … and he had to take care of himself with his brothers, and he had an aunt and uncle that lived nearby too that helped out,” Streeter said. “But he really grew and learned a lot of stuff just going through that tough time with his mom battling with tongue cancer, he grew in his faith, he learned to mature a lot faster because of that and to grow up faster. It pushed him in a lot of ways to succeed for his mother because of what she went through, and how she helped raise them and did an unbelievable job. It just kind of gave him more of a hope and more of a passion to do things for her.”
What would Streeter tell an NFL general manager about why Watson can be the face of his franchise?
“The first thing I would say is the kind of person he is,” Streeter said. “The character that he has. The leadership quality that he will provide in the locker room. And I really think it’s unbelievable what just that can do if you have enough talent, what that can do to a locker room and to a team.
“And then on top of that, I would say, this kid has only lost three games in his career as a starter. He knows how to win, and above all, he wins the big game. Whenever it’s time for a big game, he finds a way to get it done. Even when he was maybe off a little bit early in the game, he’d always find a way in the end in crunch time to make it happen. You can’t coach that stuff. That’s something that is a special quality that he has.”
Watson was the Pied Piper of Clemson football.
“He was a great leader here,” Streeter said. “He was not a vocal leader, he was the best leader by example that I’ve seen, not only because of his talent, but especially because of his work ethic, and the guys rallied around this guy because they saw how hard he worked, and then how that hard work paid off because of his talent.
“And I would say another thing that just comes to mind is that he had unbelievable poise. He always had the ability to have that calming effect. In the huddle before we took the field, he always had that presence about him that calmed everybody down and gave everybody confidence just because he was in the huddle or he was there ready to go out on the field with these guys. And he did it time and time again showing his poise, especially in big games.”
Streeter, who played quarterback at Clemson from 1997-99, was hired the week after Watson had finished his freshman season. His first day on the job was Watson’s ACL surgery day, and the two of them bonded immediately as Streeter shared his experiences becoming stronger following injury.
“I knew right away he was a special talent,” Streeter said. “And it showed before you even got on the field in the meeting room, because he did all the little things very well and was very thorough, and took notes more than anybody else and highlighted his notes, and just was very, very not just mature about the process but just very into it and wanted to get better every day that he was here.
“It just kind of translated to the field. He had so much talent, the ball coming out of his hand was very, very smooth and his fundamentals were very, very precise. I just remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow, I got here at the right time.’ ”
Streeter was coaching at Richmond and recruiting in the area when he first met Watson at one of his old campus hangouts.
“I went out to eat at a place called Mac’s Drive-in, which is a hole in the wall, just a little burger joint that’s right near campus,” Streeter said. “You could just tell he was mature beyond his years.
“He had that glow in his eye that you could tell he had something to him. Then I got to watch him on TV that fall when he became the starter and I remember texting Coach Swinney ‘cause we already had a relationship there and just told him, ‘I think you got something special in No. 4.’”
Something legendary.