Clemson draws Wildcats in Music City Bowl

CLEMSON — Dabo Swinney has nixed concerns over potential Clemson letdowns because he believes the team has sustained its effort level throughout the season.

Swinney’s belief will be put to the test in three weeks.

The Tigers (8-5) were assigned to face Kentucky (7-5) in the Dec. 27 Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., a rematch of the 2006 meeting there that the Wildcats won 28-20.

“We’ll get this team ready,” Swinney said Sunday. “I promise you we’ll be ready.”

Easier said than done.

After losing Saturday’s ACC championship game to Georgia Tech, Clemson plummeted as far as contractually possible in the conference’s bowl pecking order.

The Chick-fil-A Bowl picked No. 12 Virginia Tech, while both the Gator and Champs Sports Bowls passed on Saturday’s loser out of fear its fan base would not travel back to Florida for the second time in a month.

“There’s politics in everything,” Swinney said. “We had our opportunity to do something about it last night and we didn’t take care of business. So we don’t have anybody to blame but ourselves.

“I know there’s a structure in place and all that kind of stuff. We had a good season and were a couple plays away from an even better season. But politics get involved when decisions are being made for the bowls.”

Per an interpretation of the ACC’s contracts with its bowls, the Gator Bowl was allowed to eschew a league rule requiring it to take Florida State (6-6, 4-4 ACC) instead of a team within one win of the best available option, Clemson (6-2 ACC).

The top three tie-ins were bound to take the ACC championship loser once in a four-year period, and the Gator did so in 2006. Thus, the league’s interpretation permitted the Tigers to be removed from consideration as well as taken out as the standard — meaning Miami and Boston College (5-3) were deemed the bar for the one-win rule, ACC spokesperson Amy Yakola said.

So Clemson is left in a veritable no-win situation against Kentucky, which figures to have a relative home-crowd advantage. The Wildcats are making their third Music City appearance in four years on the strength of its support for the particular event; its fans brought record crowds to bowl in 2006 and 2007, and more than 20,000 reportedly traveled to Nashville for the Vanderbilt game this season.

For related reasons, the Tigers bid for a spot in the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte. But that slot went to North Carolina, and Yakola said she was unsure whether the league could theoretically grant Clemson’s wish per the terms of its bowl contracts.

To that end, Swinney was asked whether he felt the ACC had “gone to bat” for the championship loser’s interests.

“Well, I don’t know,” Swinney said. “That’s a question you might want to ask (athletic director) Terry Don (Phillips).

Attempts to reach Phillips were unsuccessful Sunday.