Then Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence hit running back Travis Etienne for a three-yard touchdown, following that up with a pass to wide receiver Amari Rodgers for a two-point conversion. As evidence of college greatness, there was the 56-yarder that dripped precisely over all the necessary shoulders to Chase, setting up Burrow’s three-yard designed run on third down. Spotted on the field before the game was Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who posed with Clemson players and could be seen cheering and clapping with the school’s fight song. LSU QB Myles Brennan has not practiced this week. Give it all you have, for each other.#ALLIN || #NationalChampionship pic.twitter.com/UEPeqdw27y, One. Clemson had a 17-7 lead in the second quarter before Burrow finally started to heat up, but once he got rolling, there was no stopping the hottest hand in college football. Once LSU’s now-usual flurry of kinetic stats and pinball-machine points landed on a 42-25 final score, it had done to mighty Clemson what it had done to haughty Texas, to resurgent Florida, to rugged Auburn, to the great Alabama and the brawny Georgia and the supersonic Oklahoma. LSU had to go to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to end that streak of disappointment, and now it has fully reversed the mojo from the shutout title game loss with a high-flying win that was just another day of ball for the nation's No. LSU 37, Clemson 30 Barrett Sallee, college football writer and SportsLine expert: It's hard to imagine that a team with 29 straight wins and the national championship in … All along from September, LSU had thrown and caught the ball with such rarefied precision that it probably should have brought along not a band but a symphony. WIPE. It’s a major loss for Clemson, as Skalski is a leader of the defense who had been effective during the game in applying pressure to Burrow. At that point, though, the team went three-and-out, and it pinned LSU deep again, this time at the 4-yard line. Earlier in the drive, Burrow hit wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who is having a monster night, with a 43-yard pass on a 3rd-and-11 play. (LSU 35, Clemson 25, 1:40 left in the third quarter), 11:11 PM: LSU extends lead, Clemson’s Skalski ejected, LSU tight end Thaddeus Moss scored his second touchdown of the game on a four-yard pass from quarterback Joe Burrow, pushing LSU’s lead to 10 after the extra point. “I think this team is going to be mentioned as one of the greatest teams in college football history,” said Ed Orgeron, the 58-year-old head coach with the stirring story arc from out of the game in 2014 to the top of it in early 2020, owing much to the humility he and offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger showed in welcoming last offseason from the New Orleans Saints a then-29-year-old passing coordinator, Joe Brady.