Five years ago, Dabo Swinney stood up in front of his fellow coaches in the Atlantic Coast Conference and urged them to help change the national perception of the conference in football.

For decades, the ACC has been known as a basketball conference and deservedly so with bluebloods such as North Carolina and Duke carrying the torch and winning multiple national championships, while beating some of the best basketball teams in the country along the way.

Swinney has always felt the ACC could be the same way in football if the conference as a whole took the same approach and began playing and competing against some of the best in college football.

Under Swinney, Clemson has backed up its coach’s talk by playing and beating the best in college football. Since Swinney became the full-time head coach in 2009, the Tigers have played non-conference games against Georgia and Auburn as well as playing non-conference rival South Carolina every year.

Since 2011, the Tigers are 9-4 in regular season games vs. SEC teams, including six straight dating back to 2014. Next year, Clemson will make the trek to College Station, Texas, in Week 2, to play Texas A&M, starting a home-and-home series with the Aggies.

In bowl games, no one has represented the ACC better than Clemson. The Tigers have won a bowl game in each of the last five years and all have come against some of the biggest names in college football.

The streak started with a last-second win over LSU in the 2012 Chick-fil-A Bowl and since they have downed Ohio State in the 2014 Orange Bowl and the 2017 Fiesta Bowl, Oklahoma in the 2014 Russell Athletic Bowl and the 2016 Orange Bowl and finally beating Alabama in the final seconds in the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship Game.

“I think Clemson’s success had a change of optics from a national perception of ACC Football,” ACC Commissioner John Swofford told The Clemson Insider recently. “When you have the consistency that Clemson has had over the last five or six years coupled with better depth in the league and some of our other teams being in the national picture, it has helped changed the way people look at ACC football.”

Last year, the ACC went 9-3 in bowl games, the best by any Power 5 Conference by far. This year, Clemson’s entry into the College Football Playoff for a third straight year is once again leading the way.

The reigning national champion are the top seed in the College Football Playoff and highlights the conference as 10 of the ACC’s 14 football members secured spots in 2017 postseason bowl games.

Clemson, who won the ACC Championship for a third straight season last week over Miami, will face No. 4 Alabama in the CFP Semifinal at the Sugar Bowl at 8:45 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 1.

It will mark the third-consecutive year that Clemson has faced the Crimson Tide in the College Football Playoff. The Tigers defeated Alabama 35-31 in last season’s CFP final, while the Crimson Tide claimed the national championship over Clemson with a 45-40 win two years ago.

If the Tigers (12-1) advance past the Tide (11-1) this year, they will face No. 2 Oklahoma (12-1) or No. 3 Georgia (12-1) for the CFP National Championship at 8 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 8, at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

“When you have a team that is in the national championship game two years in a row and has accomplished everything they have accomplished before then, in terms of high level wins they have had in both the regular season and in the Orange Bowl and so forth, it definitely makes a difference in how the entire league is perceived without question,” Swofford said.

It helps that Clemson fans are so passionate about football and travel well.

“Clemson fans fill stadiums, which is a pretty special thing as well,” Swofford said. “Then you couple that with the depth in the league, you can tell football is important in this league.”

Not only is Swofford proud about what the Clemson football program has accomplished, but he is proud of what the other 13 members have been doing as well to make the ACC an elite conference. Since 2014, the ACC is 13-3 in its head-to-head rivalry games against the SEC.

Last year, a record 11 teams in the ACC finished 2016 with winning records. This year, seven teams head into bowl season having already clinched a winning record, while Florida State, Virginia and Duke all have an opportunity to earn winning records with a win in their respective bowl games.

ACC teams posted a 17-9 record against teams from other Power 5 Conferences in 2016, including a 16-6 record against the SEC and The Big Ten. The ACC was 10-4 against the SEC.

“I think we have so much more depth in the league,” Swofford said. “You look at this year, Clemson’s lone loss was in the league. Last year, their lone loss was in the league. There was a time years ago when our best teams lost, it was usually out of conference, it was not within the league.

“I think that says something about the quality of play within the conferences as well. We are in a really good place from a football standpoint and Clemson has certainly played a big role in that.”