The meanest player in college football wears capri pants.

This might seem an innocuous detail, but when unraveling the enigma that is Clemson linebacker Ben Boulware -- adored by his teammates, despised by his competition, angry at the world in spite of overwhelming success -- the wardrobe seems as good a place to start as any.

He arrived at this summer's ACC kickoff media event like a martian landing from outer space. While the other stars of the league donned classically fitted suits and learned to knot bow ties, Boulware complemented his scraggly beard with a paisley print shirt, a pink tie, dress shoes with no socks and, of course, the capri pants. Even alongside superstar teammate Deshaun Watson, everyone paid attention to Boulware.

This was by design.

A Clemson teammate says of linebacker Ben Boulware: "I'm just glad he's on our side." Joshua S. Kelly/USA TODAY Sports

"He refuses to be ignored," Boulware's mother, Krystal, said.

Boulware grew up as one of the youngest in a group of eight boys -- with older brother Garrett, younger brother Cameron and five older cousins -- and was cast in the role of the quiet little brother. He wasn't interested in standing out. He just wanted to keep up.

Most of them raced motocross, Boulware proving fearless on a bike from an early age. His mother recalls him wrecking early in a race when he was 5 or 6, hopping back on his bike and chasing down 20 other competitors for the win. The lesson: Keep the throttle wide open at all times.

A brutal wreck when Boulware was 9 left him with a compound fracture in his arm and an infection that required intravenous antibiotics twice daily for months. That proved the end of motocross. Ben turned his attention to football. Garrett blossomed on the baseball field, where he was told he'd be selected in the Major League Baseball draft coming out of high school. When that failed to materialize, an agent asked around and was told most teams hadn't heard of Garrett Boulware. For Ben, the snub left an imprint, so he has made it a point to get noticed.

He was a junior in high school the first time he threw an opposing player over his shoulder. The suplex has become Boulware's signature move now, but at the time, Krystal worried he was embarrassing his competition. A few weeks later, however, one of Boulware's coaches put together a highlight film for college recruiters. The suplex was the centerpiece.

"I was like, 'Oh, that's why he did it,'" Krystal said. "And I think it kind of worked."

So maybe the suplex tackles and the capri pants are all part of a calculated plan, a way to ensure that the kid who was upstaged by his older cousins, who was always a couple of inches too small or a step too slow for scouts, won't be overlooked.

Before the ACC championship game, Boulware boasted to the media that he was the nation's best linebacker, and a careful look at film would back up the claim. It was an over-the-top claim, but that wasn't the point. Suddenly, the debate was raging on Twitter and sportswriters wrote about Boulware's candidacy, and even if a few people laughed off the possibility, he'd made his point and he'd gotten people talking.

"Maybe with the media day thing I did a little too much," Boulware says now. "But I don't care. I know how fleeting this is. I'm embracing every moment and making the most out of it. Whether that means I wear capris or suplex somebody, I'm just trying to embrace every situation."

Ben Boulware made a fashion statement at ACC media days. AP Photo/Chuck Burton

In the second quarter of Clemson's win over Louisville, Boulware wrapped eventual Heisman winner Lamar Jackson around the neck as a pile of bodies collapsed around them. Jackson was stuffed, but Boulware still dragged him to the ground, his tattooed arm flexed around the prone QB's throat. When Boulware let go, Jackson was furious. He pushed Boulware, yelled at the official, and Twitter erupted with Louisville fans alleging dirty play.

Boulware insists the play wasn't intentional, and he texted Jackson after the game to make amends. Still, the reputation stuck, and a suplex against Syracuse's Dontae Strickland, the near decapitation of Boston College QB Patrick Towles and the demolition of Cam Phillips in the ACC championship game, when Boulware celebrated by miming his autograph in the air, only added to the mythology.

Clemson fans ate it up. People outside the program called him dirty.

"That pisses me off," Boulware said. "For people to make such a blanket statement, it pisses me off. I play with high energy and passion. That's Twitter trying to paint a picture. It's football, and things happen."

Even Boulware's mother worries he might go too far sometimes. She texted Boulware before the Pitt game, instructing him not to choke or suplex Panthers back James Conner, who'd battled cancer during the offseason. Boulware never responded to the text.

Krystal remembers driving through the neighborhood when the boys were young and finding kids playing pick-up football games in their front yards. Her boys weren't invited. She taught them to be tough, but that didn't always translate to social situations. "Does not play well with others," was the criticism.

"We scared them off," Boulware said, dismissing the concerns.

He was taught to play the game the right way, the hard way. Why should he apologize for that?

"If they're soft and not real football players, they might think I'm a dirty player," Boulware said. "The guys that play the game the right way and at a high level, they respect the way I play."

Still, Boulware's Twitter feed is awash with venomous commentary. He gets direct messages from angry fans, and most of his family has quit social media because the discourse is so ugly.

"I just steer clear," Krystal said. "I don't want to be consumed by that."

In the aftermath of the Louisville game, several fans began harassing Boulware's younger sister, Bailee, on Twitter. The threats were troubling enough that the family contacted the police, but there was nothing that could be done. Krystal began noticing anomalies around the house -- strange cars parked nearby, a missing key they'd hidden outside the house. She wasn't sure whether it was related to her son's play, but it rattled the family enough that they had a new security system installed.

"Is it really that serious that you have to find my sister and say something to her?" Boulware said. "I'm sorry I tackled your quarterback too hard."

"If they're soft and not real football players, they might think I'm a dirty player. The guys that play the game the right way and at a high level, they respect the way I play." Ben Boulware

Boulware admits he has probably brought it on himself with what he calls "loud play." His teammates call him a throwback. Clemson fans have dubbed him the "Junkyard Dog." Referees have flagged him again and again, and opposing fans continue to harass him on social media. Through it all, Boulware remains defiant.

"If I have the opportunity to suplex someone again," Boulware said, "I promise you I'll do it."

On his first visit to Clemson's campus, Boulware was furious and let Brent Venables know it.

Venables, the Tigers' defensive coordinator, had missed a camp Boulware attended earlier, and so Clemson was a bit late in offering a scholarship to the linebacker who played ball just down the road in Anderson, South Carolina. To Boulware, this was a slap in the face.

"Usually, guys are ready to wet their pants when they get an offer," Venables said. "He was like, 'Where have you all been?'"

Venables was smitten. The kid had a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood and a fiery intensity that matched his own.

A year later, Boulware burst into Venables' office, lambasting his coach because he wanted a bigger role on defense. A year after that, Boulware was a regular contributor and a whirlwind of energy and profanity on the practice field. Just last week, when Clemson convened for bowl practice, Boulware erupted at Venables after the coaching staff dared to tweak a formation without informing its star linebacker.

"I've got it right here," Boulware yelled, pointing at a notepad with the formation drawn differently. "You said it this way."

It's rare a day goes by without an argument between Boulware and Venables, two self-described alpha males grappling for space.

"A couple of psychos," cornerback Cordrea Tankersley called them.

Ben Boulware and QB Deshaun Watson offer different types of leadership to their Clemson teammates. Roy K. Miller/Icon Sportswire

Last offseason, Boulware served as Venables' eyes and ears during workouts. The team ran through a practice, and Boulware would call his coach with lengthy updates. Often, Venables wasn't actually listening, focused instead on other projects as Boulware described the minutiae of each rep. Venables didn't need the details. He knew Boulware had it handled.

It's a combustible mix, Venables and Boulware. On the practice field, Venables thrashes Boulware with a string of profanity, knowing Boulware will erupt. The entire defense is energized by the conflict. It's chaos, but it has evolved into a perfect ecosystem of anger and defiance.

Boulware talks constantly on the field, usually picking out a weak link on the other side of the ball and unleashing a two-hour marathon of torment. More often than not, it's freshman offensive lineman Sean Pollard.

"It's unrelenting," senior center Jay Guillermo said. "It makes me feel bad, and I'm not even the one he's talking to."

Pollard had a beard nearly as unkempt as Boulware's, and when he trimmed it midyear, that, too, became an object of ridicule. The more manicured facial hair was just another sign Pollard was soft, Boulware said.

He's mostly kidding, but the rationale he uses actually makes the whole process -- the endless needling and torment -- seem reasonable.

"He's a hairy dude," Boulware said. "He could have a good beard."

Beards, blocking -- it's all the same. Be at your best, or face Boulware's wrath.

"He's a big brother to all of us," Pollard said. "He messes with his little brothers, but if anybody else does, he's got our backs."

It's not that Boulware doesn't have a soft side. He's quick-witted, self-deprecating and uncompromisingly loyal. His younger brother, Cameron, was diagnosed with autism as a child, and Boulware dotes on him. But if Boulware's parents attempt to tie Cameron's shoes for him or cut his food, Ben gets angry. He wants his brother to be tough, too.

"He doesn't cut Cameron any slack," Krystal said.

They roughhouse and bicker, because that's what brothers do. It's the same intensity that galvanizes Boulware's teammates and infuriates opponents, because that's what football players do.

"He's probably the best leader I've ever been around," Tankersley said. "I'm just glad he's on our side."

Boulware's Friday speeches to the team have become legendary, a weekly treatise on intensity and ferocity and profanity.

"They don't put them on TV, because it'd just be 'bleep, bleep, bleep,'" Tankersley said. "He just loses his mind."

Boulware said he spends no time preparing. The words simply come to him. It can be tough to sleep that night after being infected by the Boulware energy, but as safety Jadar Johnson said, they wake up still hyped.

But for the final ACC game of their careers, Boulware wanted Watson to take center stage. Watson is Boulware's polar opposite, reserved and cool, a man always in control. Speeches aren't his thing.

It was a big game, though, and Boulware felt the Tigers needed to hear a more reserved speech, so Watson stood at the front of the room, surveyed the crowd and opened his mouth.

"And he talked literally for seven seconds," Boulware said.

Saturdays might belong to Watson, the best player on Clemson's roster. But Fridays belong to Boulware, a mad genius with the vocabulary of a sailor and the intensity of a revival preacher.

Fittingly, that intensity has come to define this Clemson team. When the Tigers take the field in Glendale, Arizona, on Saturday against Ohio State in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl (7 p.m. ET on ESPN), it will be Boulware's words still lingering in the air. The defiance of convention, the brash assurances that the Tigers belong among the blue bloods, the anger at being supposedly overlooked by the mainstream media -- this is Clemson's 2016 ethos, and it's Boulware's handiwork.

Boulware's cellphone screen is cracked, the product of hard living, but underneath the damage, his home screen offers a message he has been trying to remember since last year's loss to Alabama. Control the input, it says, not the output.

He has been overlooked and questioned. He has been labeled dirty and flagged by officials. He has won awards and lost just seven games in four years. None of that really matters, though. That's the output.

As Clemson wrapped practices last week, coach Dabo Swinney had his young players run through one final set of Paw Drills -- the most intense, physical sessions the team does. It was a chance for the kids to test themselves while the veterans watched. But there, in the middle of the fray, at the bottom of the pile, was Boulware. That's the input.

"That's how I play the game, how I was brought up," Boulware said. "And I'm not changing for anybody."