Marcus Tate is entering his fourth season at Clemson, and the rising senior offensive lineman says he’s never been on a team hungrier for success than the 2024 Tigers are.

“This is the hungriest team I’ve ever been a part of, and I think that’s been the difference between this team and years past,” Tate said Thursday following Clemson’s first practice of fall camp.

What stands out about this year’s Clemson team that makes Tate, a veteran leader and three-year starter for the Tigers, say it’s the hungriest group that he’s been a part of?

It’s the selflessness and collective mindset of this year’s squad, according to Tate.

“I would say we all want the same thing, and no one’s doing something for themselves,” he said. “We’re all competing to get to the end, we’re all competing to finish the best way we possibly can, and everybody’s training with that in mind. It’s not everybody’s just training for themselves, to show off for themselves. It’s not like that, and that’s why I say we’re the hungriest team, because it’s a very collective thought process that we’re all going through as we’re training through the offseason.”

Tate knows what it’s like to face adversity from a personal perspective, having battled several injuries during his career as a Tiger to this point, including season-ending injuries each of the last two years. The former four-star prospect from Florida also knows what it’s like to deal with adversity from a team standpoint.

When Tate arrived at Clemson in 2021, the Tigers were coming off six consecutive playoff appearances from 2015-20 and two national titles in that span. Unfortunately, in Tate’s first three seasons at Clemson, while the Tigers did win the 2022 ACC Championship, they  haven’t earned the chance to compete in the playoff for a national title.

Clemson hasn’t made the College Football Playoff since 2020, and the Tigers are coming off a 9-4 (4-4 ACC) season in 2023 that snapped their streak of 12 straight seasons with 10-plus wins.

When it comes to Clemson’s mindset heading into this year compared to last year and previous seasons, Tate says the Tigers knew they needed to shake things up and they’ve done just that entering the 2024 campaign.

“I think the biggest thing when it comes to going 9-4 – even the other couple years (losing three games in 2022 and three games in 2021) – you’ve got to change what you’re doing, and I feel like we came into this offseason saying we can’t keep doing the same thing we were doing the past three years,” Tate said.

“And that goes with as an O-line, being closer with each other every day, hanging out with each other, training together. That even goes with doing more team bonding stuff as a whole team, more people leading by example, being more vocal leaders. A lot of us had to step out of our comfort zone, and I’ve seen a lot of people do it. We have a bunch of players on this team that are doing that, and I think everybody saw after last year that we couldn’t keep doing the same thing. It’s not just because we’re Clemson that stuff is gonna happen — like, we’ve got to make it happen, and I think everybody’s been pretty intentional with their offseason and doing that.”