Clemson’s Amari Rodgers spoke to the media earlier this week. The senior spoke about the Tigers’ first regular season loss in three years, the performance of his teammate Cornell Powell and on how the Tigers plan to move forward with the 2020 season.
On his and Powell’s play this year
“Me and Cornell have both been hard on each other in practice–pushing each other with the injuries that we have in the receiving room to stay in shape and just do the extra practice so that when it comes game time, we’re making those plays and leading the receiving room and leading the offense whenever we’re needed. We’ve been doing that the past couple of weeks. We’ve just got to keep going, keep being the leaders of the receiving room, and keep grinding every single week.”
On getting to see Powell play to the level he has played the last two games
“It’s amazing seeing that. It’s his fifth year. He’s been here for a long time. He’s been very patient. It could have been easy for him to leave, pack his bags, and transfer somewhere that it would be easier, but he stuck around. He stuck with it, grinded it out, and he’s learned from the best that’s came through here. Now he’s here showing out on the big stage. It’s just only up for him from here and I’m excited for him. I’m excited to see what else he’s going to put out there this year.”
On his fumble against Notre Dame
“I already forgot about it. I forgot about the whole game. It’s on to the next game. You’ve got to take it on to the next play. You can’t really sit back and think about the mistakes you made in the past. You’ve just got to move on. You know what happens. You know nobody is perfect. Me and Travis [Etienne] are aware of that. We’re going to mess up, but it’s about moving on to the next week, moving on to the next game—not letting it happen again. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to learn from it but we’re also going to move on. You can’t sit back and think about that for too long.”
On the Tigers’ mentality to keep going
“We’re looking forward. We’re not thinking about what’s behind us, what happened in the past. Our head is on Florida State now. We’ve got this bye week coming up and getting healthy. Up next is Florida State, Pittsburgh, and Virginia Tech—finishing out the season strong. We already learned from the past week but we’re going to get better from it and finish the season out strong.”
On the shock of the loss
“It’s one of those things where you’re not really comfortable in that situation—losing. But I wouldn’t say it’s shock. You lose in the game of football. You’re going to lose. You’re not going to always be perfect. It’s just one of those things, like I said, you’ve just got to learn from it and build from it. It’s going to make us stronger. I know it will. It’s going to make us stronger mentally and physically. I’m ready for the challenge that the coaches are going to give us in this bye week for us to improve and get better. We’re going to. I know the leads that we have on this team and we’re definitely going to build.”