Fantastic finish to a fantastic day

The rain held off, the fried chicken was amazing, traffic wasn't too bad, we found a good parking spot and Clemson won a vital game in a thrilling manner, defeating 25th-ranked Virginia 30-27 in overtime. I won't be blogging a whole lot tonight, and I'll be on the road all day tomorrow, but here goes the game story from the Greenville News, plus the down-and-dirty version from the AP. Whoops! Here's the updated AP version with quotes.

What can I say? We finally got our running game back with the return of big Yusef Kelly, the defense absolutely smothered Virginia's ACC-best rushing attack, and the Tigers found a way to come up off the mat when the Cavs shut them out 17-0 in the third period to take a 17-10 lead into the final quarter. That's something that's been missing for quite a while, as evidenced by an 0-for-8 streak against ranked teams that was broken today. This was also a much-needed win for this team, and for beleaguered coach Tommy Bowden. The Tigers now face N.C. State on Thursday night in what is once again shaping up to be a huge contest.

OTHER COVERAGE: The Greenville News has a Bart Wright column on the return of Yusef Kelly and the return of good news for the Clemson football program (more on Kelly here), plus a notebook. We were sitting near The Hill when the team took the field, and I didn't even realize a player broke his leg trotting down the slope into the stadium. And I hadn't even been drinking!

THE STATS: Here's a complete statistical summary of the game.

ACC EXPANSION: Sounds like Boston College could get the invitation on Sunday. I'll post more on all this stuff when I get back home and back on a regular schedule on Monday.