CHARLOTTE — Dabo Swinney always finds different ways to motivate his team.

He’s a master motivator says former offensive lineman Eric Mac Lain, who now works for the ACC Network as a football analyst. According to Mac Lain, Swinney is always looking for an edge to relay back to his players.

Even in a game in which his Clemson team is a 28.5-point favorite, Swinney is still finding a way to motivate his football team.

Prior to leaving for Friday’s ACC Championship Game, where the third-ranked Tigers will play No. 23 Virginia at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte today (7:30 p.m.), Swinney showed his team a video. It was a video of when his 2011 team came to Charlotte in this same stadium and beat a top 5 Virginia Tech team to win its first ACC Championship Game in 20 years.

“You know, I think it is always good to remember how you got here,” Swinney said.

This year, the Tigers got to Charlotte by dominating the opposition. Clemson (12-0, 8-0 ACC) has won 11 of its 12 games by 14 or more points and 10 of those by 30 or more points.

In the last seven weeks, following a one-point win at North Carolina, the Tigers have stepped up their play even more. They have beat their last seven opponents by a combined score of 353-61, a 41.7 average margin of victory.

But none of that matters now. It all starts over tonight when they play Virginia (9-3, 6-2 ACC), a team that went 4-0 in the month of November to earn its spot in the ACC Championship Game. This will be the Cavaliers first appearance in the title game, and they have not won the league since it shared the title with FSU in 1995.

Clemson has played in the ACC title game six previous times and Swinney said the Tigers’ first experience in 2009 was eye-opener for him and the program and let them understand just how special these games are and how anything can happen. He is relaying that message to his team today as they play an upstart Virginia team that would love nothing more than to call themselves ACC Champions.

“My first year in ’09, we won the division and got to go down to Tampa and played and that was a tough night,” he said. “Neither team punted. It is the only game I have ever been a part of where not one team punted. We couldn’t stop them and they couldn’t stop us. We lose down there. It was a tough night. It cost us the chance at the Orange Bowl. My first year, I’m like we’re going to win the ACC, this is the greatest thing ever! We got beat. Then in ’10 we didn’t have a great season, my second year.

“To come back in ’11 and to be able to win ten games, to win the league, to beat a top ten Virginia Tech was amazing, it really was. Especially, again it had been 20 years since the last time Clemson had won an ACC championship. It was a magical moment. I talked to Eric Mac Lain about it earlier today on the field. It was a special, special moment to celebrate with our team. We got back that night. Probably 5,000 fans were out there waiting on us. It was just — there was this hunger and we didn’t play well in the bowl game that year. I didn’t let that distract us from what we had accomplished. I mean, we had accomplished some landmark things, ten wins and winning the ACC in just our third year playing for the second time. It was — and having lost in Tampa to get there and win was really, really special. It was a special, special moment, something I’ll never forget.”

And now Swinney is making sure his current team does not forget or take for granted how special playing in a conference championship game really is.

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