CLEMSON — After Clemson won the ACC Championship and secured a spot in Saturday’s College Football Playoff, linebacker Barrett Carter saw an opportunity to make a statement.

All he needed was a whiteboard, a marker, and inspiration from head coach Dabo Swinney.

Ahead of the ACC Championship Game, Swinney addressed his squad in a team meeting and let them know that it was a “Us Against the World” situation  As a three-loss team, many did not think the Tigers could beat the upstart Mustangs from SMU.

However, Carter, Swinney, and the Tigers never had a doubt.

After kicker Nolan Hauser kicked a 56-yard field goal as time expired to win the ACC Championship, Carter found a whiteboard and knew it was time to broadcast Swinney’s message. 

“I went to grab the sign and I’m like, what am I going to write this time? Then it just came to my head, when coach said that, so I just went with ‘Us against the World’ and we truly believe that’s our mindset within the team,” the senior said.

This is not the first instance of the senior linebacker making a postgame statement via dry-erase marker.

After the Tigers defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks at Williams-Brice Stadium in 2023, Carter walked around the field with another message displayed on a whiteboard: “ We run this State.”

Despite losing to the Gamecocks this season, the Tigers (10-3) will take on No. 5 seed Texas, another SEC team, in the first round of the CFP on Saturday (4 p.m., TNT).

With many analysts and fans already counting the Tigers out of the game, Carter believes that his us against the world message rings truer than ever.

“Everyone likes to hate on Clemson, for some reason. We don’t get it, but it’s truly us against the world. But that’s just that’s how we like it,” the third-team All American said.

Currently, Texas (11-2) is favored by 11.5 points over the Tigers. Instead of panicking about the odds, Carter feels most at home as an underdog.

“Us being the underdog is really cool. I like it. I feel like I was the underdog my whole life, just not being the biggest, not being the strongest,” he said. “I feel like that’s just been my mentality, personally, and that’s just kind of the mentality we have within our team.

“Nobody wants us to be here, nobody expected us to be here, but it doesn’t matter what other people say, it’s what we do.”