For a guy who has seemingly lived on the hot seat the past few years, Clemson's Tommy Bowden had to be a little queasy coming into this season.

Who wouldn't be?

The restlessness among fans in Tiger Town had reached a tipping point under Bowden, his quarterback had thrown all of 22 mop-up passes during his college career, and his offensive line was replacing four of five starters. Bowden conceded this summer that he'd never gone into a preseason "this inexperienced" at the quarterback position.

What he didn't know was that he would also be this good at the quarterback position.

Cullen Harper, who might as well have been in the Witness Protection Program his first three years at Clemson, gets a chance on Saturday night (ESPN2, 7:45 ET) to do two things few people thought possible back in August.

The first is leading the Tigers (8-2, 5-2 ACC) to an Atlantic Division title and their first appearance in the ACC championship game. The second is upstaging Boston College's Matt Ryan as the best quarterback in the league.

"You couldn't draw it up any better," said Harper, who in 10 games as Clemson's starting quarterback, has already established 20 school records.

"It's going to be a great atmosphere. It's going to be electric. Everybody's going to want to watch Matt Ryan and see what he does from the hype he's gotten and the way the pro scouts are looking at him. We're just trying to make the most of this opportunity.

"This is what it's come down to, and this is what you come to Clemson to play for."

For Harper, a redshirt junior, the wait was longer than he would have preferred. But this is precisely where he expected to be all along, even if he wasn't the fans' quarterback of choice when the season began.

Heralded freshman Willy Korn, who won two state championships in nearby Byrnes, S.C., was the rage. He could throw it. He could run it. The Clemson faithful were salivating to see him in orange. He even graduated from high school early to be able to participate in spring practice.

All the while, Harper kept his head down, his mouth shut and his eyes focused squarely on the prize.

"You look at him and might not see it, but there's a fire that burns deep inside him," said Harper's father Jeff, a starting offensive tackle on Georgia's 1980 national championship team. "He's like a swan going across a lake. He looks beautiful, but don't push him too hard, because he'll come back at you."

In this case, Harper wasn't pushed enough. He'd just never been given a chance. Even when Will Proctor slumped toward the end of last season, coinciding with the Tigers' tailspin in which they lost four of their last five games, the coaches never turned to Harper.

For just about everybody, he was an unknown quantity. He played in a Wing-T offense in high school in Alpharetta, Ga., and a broken collarbone his senior season limited him to just three games. He redshirted his first year at Clemson, played behind Charlie Whitehurst the next and behind Proctor last season. And in the court of public opinion, he was destined to play behind Willy Korn this season.

"It definitely motivated me," said Harper, who will graduate in May with a business management degree and a minor in law. "I felt like most people were writing me off before I even had a chance to show what I could do. I just continued to work hard throughout the offseason and really trusted in myself.

"Looking back, people didn't know what to expect from me, because they'd really never seen me play and didn't know what I was capable of doing."

The Clemson players were probably wondering the same thing until December 2006. Proctor had to miss a practice leading up to the Music City Bowl to attend graduation ceremonies, and for the first time all season, Harper was allowed to work with the first-team offense.

As fate would have it, he had one of his best days, breeding the kind of confidence that only spread throughout the program all offseason and into spring practice.

"I was confident in my abilities," Harper said. "I just wanted the opportunity to show that I could do it with the first team. I played the way I'd been playing with the second team. Really, it wasn't a whole lot different. I relaxed and went out there and had fun."

The Clemson coaches insist they always believed in Harper, who shares a very close relationship with offensive coordinator Rob Spence. They just felt like their offensive problems late last season ran much deeper than quarterback and didn't want to all of a sudden toss Harper into that fray.

To be fair to him, they wanted him to have a clean start.

Bowden feels like Harper's cool, calm demeanor has been a perfect fit for this team.

"He's not a guy who's going to do cartwheels after a touchdown pass or come out there and do a whole bunch," Bowden said. "He's got a very consistent, even temperament. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes that's bad. I think in his case, it's very sincere. He's not trying to be somebody he's not."

Bowden turns a bit coy, though, when quizzed about Harper's remarkable level of play this season compared to his coach's expectations back in August.

After all, the 6-foot-4, 215-pound Harper is 13th nationally with a 154.1 pass efficiency rating. He leads the ACC with a school-record 26 touchdown passes and has been picked off only four times all season, while completing 66.5 percent of his passes.

"What level has he performed?" asked Bowden, repeating the question and turning to longtime Clemson sports information director Tim Bourret for help.

"I don't know. What's he ranked nationally? Where is it, Tim … 13th? So he's ranked better than 112 guys or whatever. … He's done good."

He's done good, all right, and he's been at his best during the Tigers' four-game winning streak to get to this one-game playoff with the Eagles. In his last four games, Harper has completed 77 percent of his passes for 902 yards and 12 touchdowns. He's thrown 107 consecutive passes without an interception.

"There's been more at stake every week, and he's produced every week," Bowden said.

Now he gets a chance to carve out a little history. The winner on Saturday faces the Virginia Tech-Virginia winner on Dec. 1 in Jacksonville, Fla., for the ACC championship.

Harper doesn't need to be reminded that the Tigers last won an ACC title in 1991. Patience isn't exactly bubbling over at a place like Clemson when you've gone that long without a title.

How fitting that Harper -- who's been the essence of patience in choosing to ride it out and not transfer -- just might be the missing piece needed to end that long drought.

"I prayed about it a lot and felt like deep down inside that the coaches had the confidence in me and all I had to do was go out and prove that I was capable of playing," Harper said. "I had faith that they were going to play the quarterback who gave the team the best chance to win.

"I just made my mind up that I was going to stick it out here. This is where I wanted to play, and I wasn't going to let anybody steal my dream."

Nor was he going to let what might have been his only chance pass him by, which takes his father back to his own playing days at Georgia.

Jeff Harper, in a good-natured way, still gets a charge out of Vince Dooley's explanation for why Herschel Walker didn't start that first game as a freshman against Tennessee -- one of the most storied debuts in college football history.

"Even after Vince had seen Herschel in practice, I can remember him saying, 'I'm afraid he's just a big, stiff running back,'" Harper said, chuckling. "I guess the rest is history.

"Now, I'm not making any comparisons, not at all. But if not given an opportunity, you never know how people are going to perform."

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