Dabo Swinney says he doesn’t care what people are saying or writing about his team outside the Allen Reeves Football Complex. That’s probably true. But it doesn’t mean his players are not hearing it.
Following last week’s near loss to North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Clemson was everyone’s flavor of the week, if you will. Pundits had a field day, saying Clemson is not a playoff contender, while comparing them to the 2014 Florida State team that struggled to win games on their way to the first inaugural College Football Playoff.
The negativity was a little understandable to a certain point since the Tigers were coming off a game where they barely beat a team many felt they should have beat by 28 points.
However, it looks as if the negativity has made its way into a second week. It appears Clemson lost its bye week because some in the national media are still picking on the Tigers.
No matter what show you watched or what radio station you turned on Sunday, you were bound to hear someone say they don’t believe in Clemson or Clemson is a pretender. There are some experts that don’t even have Clemson in their top 4.
So, how can the players not hear all this noise? How can they not see what people are saying about them? How can they not see the polls?
Clemson lost first place votes in both major polls on Sunday even though it did not play. But that isn’t the crazy part, they lost those first-place votes to Alabama, who was also idle this past Saturday.
I guess you can say Clemson lost its bye week.
I never knew such a thing was possible. But in the eyes of public perception, the Tigers lost by not playing this week. How crazy is that?
Now the question is how will this motivate the them? If I had to guess, based on past experiences, they’ll be very motivated.
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