Tigers Must Balance Fun and Business

CLEMSON — The Clemson Tigers face a unique challenge for the fifth year in a row, and it is not an opponent.

The challenge: How to manage the fun of a bowl game with the understanding of the greater prize of a national championship being four quarters away.

"It is all business for us," linebacker Chad Smith said. "Sure we are going to go there and enjoy the experience, but we are on a business trip. If we go there and lose our focus or don't put our energy into the right things then we know there is a chance that our season will end. We have worked too hard to have it go down like that."

It is a challenge that most teams — in fact all teams until the inception of the playoff six years ago — never have to face. Most go to their bowl games, have fun, play the game and enjoy the experience.

But for the teams in the playoff, they have the bowl experience one week — from practices and team meetings to fun team outings and unique opportunities many of the players will never again have — and the next week, for the winning team, a trip to the national championship.

That balance of the fun and the practice is something that some players have trouble managing.

“A big thing is managing the freedom,” offensive lineman John Simpson said. “You don’t want someone to go and get in trouble. People don’t know how to act when they get freedom because we haven’t had that much freedom in a while. So, some people need to just focus on staying out of trouble.”

However, those issues would appear to be an anomaly for a team that head coach Dabo Swinney has praised throughout the year as the “easiest” team he has ever coached.

"I think the neat thing is not a lot of seniors, but the experience and leadership of those guys has been unbelievable," head coach Dabo Swinney said. "The youth and the energy that has been a part of this team has been fun to coach.

"We're a young team. I think we played the most freshmen of anybody in the country. Our future is very bright," Swinney said. "But it's been neat to see it come together, the chemistry, the buy-in, the selflessness of this group.

“If I had to just say one thing, just to peel it all back, is we have an attitude of belief in who we are and what we do and how we do it. That was my No. 1 thing when I got the job was really creating the right mindset. It’s been a process over the past eight years in establishing the right kind of culture and the type of consistency that we want to have. But, if I have to say one things, it’s just belief."

Even with the list continuing to grow of accomplishments seemingly week-by-week, for Swinney every victory and failure has been a part of the journey that has led the Tigers to the point they are now at — which is eight quarters away from back-to-back national championships and back-to-back perfect seasons.

“One day at a time, understanding that you’re going to have success, you’re going to have failures,” Swinney said. “It’s just all part of the journey. You know, it doesn’t happen overnight, and just staying — keep the main thing the main thing. Continue to stay focused on the core values that were set forth in the program from day one and what the vision was laid out to be, and that’s what our focus has always been. Nothing has changed as we go into year nine.”