Hunter Renfrow Helps the Tigers Find Joy in Road Game Atmosphere

NEW ORLEANS — The No. 3 Clemson Tigers are having no illusions as to the fact they will be playing a road game Monday night (8 p.m., ESPN) when they take on No. 1 LSU in New Orleans' historic arena — the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

"I think we're the only one that took a plane here," Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. "So yeah, this is definitely a road game. This is what — the last one was a road game. You know, you go out to — it's a long way out there to Arizona, and that was a great football team, and we might as well have played — we could have just played it in Columbus and it would have made it a lot easier on everybody because it was probably about 80-20 and our fans are amazing, but Ohio State, what do they got, about 60,000 students? Got a lot of graduates, a lot of alumni all over the place, and we do, too, but we're a smaller school.

"So it's pretty cool. But yeah, this is — I mean, this is definitely a road game. It just worked out that way, and I mean, you don't know these things in advance, but I think it's really cool for LSU. How cool is that, for them to be able to just hop on a bus and ride up the road 40 minutes or so. It would be like us playing for the National Championship in Greenville, literally."

But even though Clemson boarded a plane to arrive in the Big Easy and LSU simply hopped on a bus for the short 45 minute drive, Swinney is still expecting an atmosphere that cannot be replicated any other place.

"Yeah, it's going to be wild. It's going to be like — we could have just played in Baton Rouge, but the weather might have been bad," Swinney said. "It's going to be like a road game. I know our fans will show up and they'll be passionate just like they are everywhere we go on the road. But it'll be an awesome, awesome atmosphere."

That atmosphere is not only aided by the fact that the Tigers from Louisiana are playing a pseudo home game, but by the fact that these two teams are attempting to do something that has only been done once in modern football history — finish a season 15-0.

"I mean, this is two great teams, two undefeated teams," Swinney said. "Again, they're playing right here at home, and it's exciting. It's exciting to know you're at this point. It's coming to an end. It's been — I don't know about college football, but this has been the longest season in the history of Clemson football. We started July 31, and we played August 29, I think, something like that, and here we are finishing up January 13th."

The Tigers were offered some sage advice from a two-time national champion and current NFL star before they left Clemson for New Orleans. That advice was to enjoy the moment because dreaded mat drills and offseason conditioning starts in two weeks.

"Hunter Renfrow was speaking to our team at practice the other day," Swinney said. "He was at practice right before we left, and he was just telling the guys, hey — he doesn't say a whole lot. I don't know what you got to say, I don't know, man, y'all just have fun. Just have fun. He goes, hey, look at it this way, you guys got mat drills in two weeks, because it's like literally our season has gone so long. We're like six weeks away from spring practice. So it's just crazy.

"It's been fun. It's been a lot of fun. But it's been — it's nice to know that, hey, man, let's go let it all hang out and cut it loose. We've had a wonderful year. We've had an unbelievable decade, and I'm excited to finish strong Monday night and then set our eyes on what's next."

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