Kicking and field goals. Over the last two years, it’s been a love-hate relationship for Clemson football.
Since the departure of longtime placekicker B.T. Potter, the trials and tribulations have been against the Tigers’ favor in the special teams department.
Two key misses against Duke a season ago helped lead to an upset in Week 1. A miss against No. 4 Florida State led to a Seminole win in overtime that same season, something that could have been erased with the right kick.
That was until a true freshman saved the day in the 2024 ACC Championship game.
Enter Nolan Hauser, who had seen the ebbs and flows of the struggles over the season as well. His generally low, line drive kick tended to receive heat from defenders, with blocks on multiple attempts throughout the season. Earlier in the game, Hauser missed an attempt from 44 yards.
But the freshman got another chance.
The Cornelius, North Carolina, native grew up 22 minutes away from Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, and had a plethora of family and friends attend the game. It was a near storybook ending for Hauser, who could give Clemson a late lifeline and hit a 56-yard field goal to put Clemson back in the College Football Playoff since 2020.
If missed, it would go into overtime, and their opponent, the SMU Mustangs, had scored 17 unanswered in the fourth quarter to tie the game.
Head coach Dabo Swinney gave Hauser one final piece of advice before he went out to kick the eventual game-winner.
“Put the ball through!” Swinney said.
“You know it,” Hauser responded.
As the local watched his first-ever game-winning field goal get just enough height to clear the crossbar, the “surreal” moment made Hauser think about what to do next. But the freshman didn’t know where to start the celebration.
“You just turn around, and you’re just like, ‘What do I do?’” Hauser said after making the kick. “And everybody’s just running, and you just kind of double take, it’s like, ‘Did I really just do that?’”
With the implications of the kick, where the game was being played and the scenarios at stake for the Tigers, Swinney stuck with his kicker, who he has echoed throughout the season and a continuously confident player.
Many other players, like Clemson defensive end T.J. Parker, have seen this confidence ooze from the freshman since he joined the Tigers’ roster for the Gator Bowl last season.
“When I first met Nolan in Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl, we had lined up a 55-yarder. I said, ‘Bro, you going to miss this, you from high school,’” Parker recalled. “He looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘I can make this (kick) with my eyes closed,’ and he kicked it, and it could have went for like 60. So like, the confidence in him is through the roof, and that’s what you need in a kicker.”
For Hauser, it’s part of his persona, especially seen with a subtle wink that he gave the sidelines ahead of his career-long field goal, which was the first game-winning or go-ahead field goal for the Tiger in his young career.
“You got to go in with that confidence, and that’s a huge thing with one of those kicks,” Hauser said.
It’s a full-circle moment for Clemson. Special teams were the Achilles’ heel of this football team, consistently agonizing the team and setting them back instead of moving them forward. Now, it was a kicker that put the Tigers back in the College Football Playoff, and the thing the Tigers wanted to play for this season is still available: a national championship.
“I was thinking that missed field goal was going to haunt us, but it’s kind of crazy how it ended that way,” Swinney said.
The team will begin its quest in the College Football Playoff on Dec. 21 in Austin, Texas, where the Tigers will play the Texas Longhorns in the first round of the postseason.
