CLEMSON — This weekend, Tommy Bowden’s world was probably pretty quiet.

Clemson’s 10th-year head football coach says he “lives in a cave,” and there was no danger of negativity puncturing his humble abode. The Tigers enjoyed an off week.

Starting today, that’s a different story.

Bowden and the Tigers face their biggest game of the season — and perhaps his coaching career — Thursday night at Wake Forest.

All the goodwill of the No. 9 preseason ranking and belief that this would be the year Bowden broke through and led Clemson to its first ACC title since 1991 is long gone, evaporated in the wreckage of a 34-10 opening-game loss to Alabama.

Now, after last week’s mystifying 20-17 home loss to Maryland, Bowden might be fighting for his job despite receiving a lucrative contract extension that bumped his annual salary to $1.8 million dollars following last December’s flirtation with Arkansas.

If you’re Bowden (or athletics director Terry Don Phillips, for that matter), you probably aren’t sleeping well right now.

This week could be a fulcrum on which the rest of the season — and Bowden’s job security — turns.

BB&T Field (formerly Groves Stadium) has never been a happy place for Clemson, and 2008 is no different.

Two years ago, the Tigers were fortunate to leave with a victory, needing Gaines Adams’ amazing scoop-and-score of a muffed field goal to turn what looked like a 20-3 fourth-quarter deficit into a stunning comeback win.

Jim Grobe’s Demon Deacons have the talent to win their second ACC title in three years, and Navy didn’t do the Tigers any favors by pulling a 24-17 upset last week. The Deacs will be angry, and it’ll be near-impossible for Clemson to pull anything meaningful from the game film, given the huge contrasts between Rob Spence’s tight end-oriented spread system and the Middies’ triple-option offense.

But this is the hand Clemson has dealt itself with its downright ugly start.

Bowden always seems to be the best with his back pressed firmly against the wall, and this situation certainly applies.

The ACC is as wide-open as ever, and if the Tigers can get their act together, the Maryland loss won’t even sting, given the Terps’ ugly defeat at Virginia which pulled them immediately back to the Atlantic Division pack.

Clemson has six ACC games left, and if it can run the table (or something close), a trip to Tampa the first weekend of December remains a real possibility.

But Bowden and his staff must prove they can bring a wounded team together and put it in the right situation to succeed when it matters.

That process starts Thursday night in Winston-Salem.

Beat the Demon Deacons, and the early-season cloud lifts, the doubters run back to their hiding places.

Lose, and it’s open season on job security.

In other words, it’s gonna be one real interesting week.