Watson has more important things to worry about
By: will-vandervort November 2, 2015

With No. 17 Florida State coming to town this Saturday and the first College Football Playoff Poll set to be released on Tuesday it seems fairly certain what’s on the Tigers’ minds, right?

Not Deshaun Watson’s.

“My main focus right now is getting these tests done this week and finishing up school, and then football,” the Clemson quarterback said. “All the rankings and stuff will take care of itself.”

And when it does, at least on Tuesday, the Tigers (8-0, 5-0 ACC) could be the No. 1 team. The Massey College Football Index has Clemson ranked No. 1 in 33 out of 96 rankings right now, and they are now 13-2 odds by Vegas Insider.com to win the national title behind Ohio State, Alabama and Baylor.

But all of that means nothing to Watson.

“Not for me it’s not. That’s not my main focus,” he said. “It is still early in November. We have four or five more weeks to go and anything can happen. Those rankings are just numbers right now.”

But those numbers have people looking at Clemson in a different light than earlier in the year. The Tigers have scored 58 and 56 points in the last two games and have gained at least 532 yards in the last four games, including 623 against NC State.

“I hope we are getting some respect,” linebacker Ben Boulware said. “We should have had respect from the get go. We have proven ourselves all season. It’s about time. It has taken everyone else too long to try and catch on to that train.”

That train, or at least Las Vegas, has opened the line for the FSU game with Clemson as a 12-point favorite. The Tigers were just a 10-point favorite in last week’s game against NC State.

“It is kind of annoying it has taken this long in the season for people to realize how good we are,” Boulware said. “Either way, we say we don’t listen to the outside attention, we know it is out there but we are going to do our job, regardless. If they had us ranked sixth or seventh, we are going to play the same way as if we are ranked first. It does not affect how we play on Saturdays. It does kind of motivate us when we don’t get the respect we need or deserve.”