CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Kelly Bryant had just done something most thought impossible, and before he sprinted to the end zone at Bank of America Stadium to celebrate Clemson's dominant win over Miami in the ACC championship game with fans and teammates, he had a message for the TV viewers and the critics and the folks back home.
Bryant had just wrapped up an interview with ESPN's sideline reporter, and after taking a half step off camera, he leaned back into frame.
"Just being Kelly B.," he offered, unprompted and with a sprawling grin.
Then came this noise -- something like a cross between a cat's meow and the sound of lasers being shot in "Star Wars." It was a "me-ew." Or something like that.
It was goofy, yes. That's Bryant's personality, and winning is fun.
It wasn't meaningless though. As inscrutable as it might've sounded, anyone who knows Bryant got the joke.
"It's just a little saying that we would always say going through the hallways [in high school]," Bryant explained.
But the onomatopoeia caught on, and teammates at Clemson all know it too. In fact, Bryant was having lunch on campus the other day when, off in the distance, he heard a few random students making the same sound: Me-ew. Rough translation: Don't change a thing, Kelly.
After all, this is Bryant "just being Kelly B.," as he is fond of saying. If there was a tagline for Clemson's offseason, that was it: Be yourself. Don't be Deshaun Watson. And it all sounded so cliché back in July and August. But as the season played out and the Tigers won the ACC for a third straight year to finish 12-1 and atop the playoff committee's ranking, it has been startlingly obvious that Bryant has lived those words at every turn.
No one is confusing Bryant with Watson, to be sure. For as much success as Clemson has enjoyed this season, Bryant has still taken his share of heat for the occasionally dormant downfield passing attack, and the Tigers' offense is averaging about five points less per game than it did a year ago with Watson at the helm. But the production isn't really the takeaway. It's the personality. Watson was all business, a stoic, commanding presence that announced to anyone watching that Clemson was to be taken seriously. Bryant has taken a different tact: He's having fun.
If you're looking for a turning point in Clemson's offseason quarterback battle, it might've been the start of fall camp, when Bryant showed up seeming like a new man. If the burdens of Watson's success weighed on him, he no longer showed it. He was having fun. He was laughing and joking and oozing confidence and, one assumes, me-ewing whenever the mood struck.
And then Bryant dominated Kent State in the opener.
Then he picked himself up after a devastating hit against Auburn and led the Tigers to a win.
Then he went on the road and tormented a top-25 Louisville team.
On it went, with Clemson's offense looking little like last season's, and every bit in the image of Bryant's goofy, confident, bubbly persona.
And the thing is, that might be exactly the formula Clemson needed this season.
"Deshaun was a guy that led by example. If he spoke, he spoke loud," Bryant said. "I'm different. I want people to see, through my game, the joy."
That's not to suggest Watson couldn't have led the Tigers back to the playoff, as Bryant has. It's just that, this isn't last year's Tigers, the veteran bunch, brimming with a cool confidence and an easy "been there, done that" approach. Last year was a mission. This year is an adventure.
Last year, the playcalling fit Watson's star status. He ran when the team absolutely needed it. But Bryant has had 19 more designed runs on first or second down.
The ground game was straightforward last season. This year, five players have at least 50 carries.
With Watson at QB, Mike Williams and Artavis Scott accounted for nearly 40 percent of Clemson's receiving targets. This year, 11 players have been targeted at least 10 times, and only one more than 70 times.
As one ACC coach suggested, the lack of a true superstar has made Clemson's offense more surprising and harder to scheme against. It's little a dash of everything in the cabinet, a recipe Bryant has perfected.
He's the guy no one seemed eager to trust to start the season, leading the way with a boyish naiveté and overwhelming enthusiasm. The personality simply fit the team in a way Watson's more matter-of-fact tone and larger-than-life image wouldn't.
"He believes in himself, and we believe in him," Clemson receiver Hunter Renfrow said. "That's what makes him special."
Last year's team already believed. There was no sales pitch needed.
This year's team believes because Bryant is so darned eager to smile past the doubters.
Bryant dresses with style, from the Cam Newton-eque pregame attire in Charlotte during ACC championship week to the khakis and loafers he donned for media sessions.
"As I get older," Bryant said, "I feel like I want to start dressing more business casual."
But really, Bryant is the epitome of business casual.
"Deshaun [Watson] was a guy that led by example. If he spoke, he spoke loud. I'm different. I want people to see, through my game, the joy." Kelly Bryant
On the field, he dances and jokes and smiles. If the defense makes a play, Bryant is the first guy off the sideline to celebrate.
Among the cameras and media, Bryant is right at home. He teases teammates, shares off-the-cuff anecdotes, whoops his me-ew catchphrase and thinks little of it.
After the Tigers toppled Miami for the conference title, no one embraced the moment more than Bryant, who sat on the edge of the podium constructed for the trophy presentation, his legs draped over the side and dangling like a child on a swing set, glaring up at the video board that was replaying the highlights. He was lost in the moment, savoring every second of it. That's the real fun of an adventure. No one knew what the outcome would be, and so it's that much sweeter when the destination turns out to be a championship.
"It's just a lot of joy," Bryant said. "For me, I can't put it into words. It's just -- special. I'm just a little small-town kid who is very joyful."
Bryant has been around all of it before. He learned from Watson, something coaches are eager to remind anyone who questions the transition. In last season's national title game, Bryant signaled in plays to Watson -- playing mentally, if not physically, he said.
"He doesn't let anything rattle him," said Clemson co-offensive coordinator Tony Elliott. "He's taken ownership of being in this position, and his teammates rally around him. He just has that personality."
It does seem odd to consider Clemson an underdog this season. The Tigers opened the season in the AP poll's top five, coming off back-to-back national championship game appearances and winning it all last season. But Clemson wasn't the pick in the ACC, and there were so many more questions than answers. And yet, here they are, Bryant and those other question marks, poised for another run.
But the really funny thing about it all is, they haven't done this by playing the "nobody believes in us" card. Sure, Bryant lugs around a chip on his shoulder, but he has not made it the centerpiece of his game. And yes, No. 1 Clemson is, in fact, the underdog against No. 4 Alabama in the College Football Playoff at the Allstate Sugar Bowl. But the Tigers don't seem too interested in point spreads.
That's the thing about Bryant's approach. Yes, he's an underdog. And that's fun. That's who he is. That's Kelly B. And his team is following right behind him, smiling with each step forward, just as he has.
"The guys knew who I was," Bryant said. "The main thing for me, no matter how I do, just continue to be that person. That's what I'm doing."
In other words, me-ew.