On Saturday, Clemson held its last physical practice before taking on No. 4 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl on Dec. 31.
With 10 days remaining before the biggest game Clemson has played since the 1982 Orange Bowl win over a No. 4 Nebraska team, head coach Dabo Swinney says things have come together nicely for the nation’s number team.
“It’s like camp all over again. I love having them,” Swinney said. “We don’t have class and all of that stuff. We don’t have the twenty-hour rule so we just have them. We can kind of plan our day and have a little more meeting time, and kind of do things at a less hectic pace than you do in a normal game week.
“It’s been good. We have tried to be smart with more of our practices. We are not practicing a long time, but we get after it when we get out there.”
On Sunday, the Tigers will have lite day, mostly meetings while buttoning up things for the coming week. Clemson will practice on Monday before being dismissed for the Christmas break. They will reconvene back in Clemson on Christmas night, practice again in Clemson on the 26th and then head off to Miami, where they will have lite practices on the 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th.
The game will kickoff at 4 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.
With all the activities that come with playing in the Orange Bowl, plus the fact it will be a national semifinal game, there will be distractions all around. That’s why Swinney’s goal is to get most of the work done before they leave for sunny South Florida.
“This team is 13-0 for a reason,” he said. “They just did not luck up and get there. This team knows how to get ready. They like to practice. They know what it takes to win. They have been dialed in. They’ve been sharp.
“The physical part was done today. On Sunday we will have meetings to kind of button things up for the week and Monday will be like a Thursday practice for us, it’s almost as if we are getting ready to go play. That way they can take the plan with them and kind of visualize it while they are on their break. When we come back, we will pick up with a full week of prep.”