Tigers, Tide get one less day of prep

Because Clemson played its 2015 Orange Bowl semifinal on Friday, the Tigers got an extra day to prepare for the national championship compared to this year.

Of course, the Crimson Tide also lost a prep day.

“It’s been a long couple of nights here for us as coaches,” coach Dabo Swinney said Tuesday.

Playing later into January presents new challenges, but Clemson has been here before, and Swinney has proven to learn from new situations.

“We had excellent preparation for our playoff game. This is a different animal,” Swinney said. “Obviously we don’t have as much time to prepare for this one, but the transition has been very good.”

Clemson arrived home Sunday evening. The players reconvened with coaches Monday. The team will practice in Clemson through Friday morning and take a flight to Tampa that afternoon.

“We’ll have good work here,” Swinney said.

Back-to-back is hard

In the past 18 years only four teams, counting Clemson, have lost in a national title game and returned to it the following season.

“We’ve been able to get back in back-to-back years, which is really incredible,” Swinney said. “There are very few programs that can maintain that type of consistency.”

Swinney said it takes a strong culture within the program and players. Teams have to stay healthy, and with every school having 85 scholarships, there’s more parity.

Healthy Tigers

Swinney said there were no injuries to update coming out of the Fiesta Bowl.

“We’re in good shape,” he said.

This story was originally published January 3, 2017 at 9:27 PM with the headline "Tigers, Tide get one less day of prep."