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You don't have to look hard to relive "The Hit."

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It's treated as folklore among avid college football fans. It's the time Jadeveon Clowney, then a 6-foot-5, 266-pound defensive end at the University of South Carolina, lit the sports world ablaze with a swift show of brute force in the 2013 Outback Bowl.

Die-hards plastered it on T-shirts. Pundits swiftly debated whether or not it was the best hit of all time. Videos, from every angle, emerged. Fans and analysts alike infamously dubbed it "The Hit," one so vicious it soon became the biggest bullet point on Clowney's college football résumé full of "HE DID WHAT?!" kind of highlights.

See it for yourself.

Clowney has long been hailed as a freak of nature, a mountain of human mass so gifted, so strong, so fast that his rare mix of talents are considered to come along once in a generation. One whose high school coach once said he'd leapfrog offensive linemen to block field goals, one who could dunk a basketball in nothing but a pair of flip flops.

It's all but assumed that these kinds of players, who so easily dominated at the college level (Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, to name a few), are all but locks to continue to find the same success in the professional ranks.

But for Clowney, that hasn't always been the case.

Boom or bust

South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney holds up the jersey for the Houston Texans first pick of the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft with NFL commissioner Roger Goddell, Thursday, May 8, 2014, in New York.Credit: AP

Not long after Clowney's hit in the Outback Bowl, his final year in school became a bit of a circus. As the surely soon-to-be No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, the spotlight — and thus the scrutiny — on him grew. Clowney failed to produce the same type of numbers he had previously put up, and the rumor mill started churning.

While reports of injuries started creeping into headlines, many questioned Clowney's toughness, saying he was preserving his body from injury and saving himself to earn big bucks in the NFL. It's a crude accusation, really, but it followed him throughout the offseason, with scouts questioning his toughness.

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Naysayers be damned, the Texans selected him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, but after his rookie year was cut short by a slew of injuries, the critics cried louder. All those injuries trickled into his sophomore campaign, and in his first extended stint in the pros, he failed to produce the jaw-dropping, helmet cracking highlights that he did so easily at South Carolina.

Fans and experts alike throughout the league were ready to label him a bust, a term in the sports world reserved for those who fail to live up to sky-high expectations. And heading into this season, many were ready to write him off.

Boy, how things change.

Waiting game

Just as Clowney strutted up to the podium after Texas' playoff win over the Oakland Raiders on Saturday, he couldn't help but smile. Beaming cheek to cheek, he got up to the microphone, turned to the reporters in attendance and said: "Y'all were waiting on me, huh?"

It was an appropriate dig to those who've been questioning his development over the past few years, and even more fitting being that he'd just played a key role (you can watch his momentum-swinging interception in the first quarter above) in helping the Houston Texans win their first game in the postseason in four years.

It's more or less what he's done all season for the Texans. Taking the torch from an injured J.J. Watt, one of the league's most stalwart defensive forces, he's racked up a career-high 52 tackles and six sacks en route to the first Pro Bowl selection of his career.

“He just changes the game,” cornerback A.J. Bouye told ESPN after the game. “We miss J.J. [Watt], but he’s just that good of a presence. He shows you why he’s No. 1 overall."

It's hard to say exactly what changed. But, put simply, this is the first year that Clowney's been fully healthy while playing in the NFL. And subsequently an injury to the team's best defender, which would prove to be detrimental to most teams, has ceded him the room to grow without being stuck in the shadow of league's most favorite "try hard."

Put all that together, and all the pieces seem to finally be coming together for the player critics were jumping to call a "bust" just a few months ago.

"Things didn't go well earlier in my career, but you know I'm on the right track now and things are coming together," Clowney said. "I'm healthier and I'm playing good ball, and we're all coming together."

For a guy as physically gifted as Clowney, it might have just been a matter of time. I mean, just look at him.

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And he'll be the Patriots' problem this Sunday.

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