During his weekly radio call-in show Monday night, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney discussed what it will take for the Tigers (9-1, 7-0 ACC) to get the respect they deserve.
Swinney says in order for that to happen, all his team “can do is win.”
The next opportunity for the Tigers to do that comes Saturday against Miami (5-5, 3-3) at Death Valley.
“If you just keep winning, all of that stuff will take care of itself,” he said, “because when you win and you achieve the goals that we have, then you get the opportunity to play on the biggest stage.”
Swinney pointed out that Clemson is the only program to make six consecutive College Football Playoff appearances and that the Tigers have won six playoff games, second only to Alabama (nine).
He also mentioned that the Tigers have knocked off the Crimson Tide twice in the national championship game — 35-31 in 2016 and 44-16 in 2018 — while also noting that Clemson is 3-1 against Ohio State in his tenure.
“Nobody has been to six final fours in a row, nobody,” Swinney said. “We are the only school, and if it was easy to do, there would be other people that did it. And then we beat the best of the best. I mean, you can’t beat nobody better than Alabama. Not only have we beaten them, we won a one-possession game and then we won a blowout.
“So, that is all you can do is just keep winning. When you get your opportunities on that stage, you have to win. It is hard. We’ve had some moments where we didn’t play as well. We’ve got the second most playoff wins. Those are really hard games to win. Alabama has the most. We have the second most. Alabama, as good as they’ve been, they are 2-3 in their last five national championships. These are really hard games. There have been a lot of blowouts. We got our butts kicked against Ohio State a couple of years ago. But hey, we are 3-1 against Ohio State. We beat them a couple of times on that platform.”
Consistency is the key that Swinney and the Tigers are focused on.
“So, the bottom line is you just have to stay consistent because if you stay consistent, you will continue to put yourself in those moments,” he said. “You have to win your share of those games. That is all you can do is focus on that.”
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