Dabo Swinney’s message to team about College Football Playoff rankings
The first College Football Playoff rankings of the season will be released Tuesday night, but Clemson is only worried about N.C. State and not where it stands in the poll.
The Tigers, the defending national champions, are ranked No. 5 in the Coaches Poll and No. 6 in the AP Poll through the first nine weeks of the season.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney had a message for his team about the importance of the rankings at this point in the year.
“Coach Swinney’s message to our guys is if we take care of business, then we’re going to be fine,” co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott said Monday. “I’m sure there’s a thousand different scenarios, but bottom-line, if we don’t take care of business Saturday, none of it matters… I’m sure we’ll have people texting us while we’re in meetings Tuesday night telling us where we are, but it’s really not that big of a deal for our guys for where we are at this point in the season. We’ve got a lot of ball to play.”
Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant, who had one of his best games of the season this past week against Georgia Tech, does not plan to watch the rankings be released but expects to know where the Tigers stand.
“It’s hard not to know because a lot of people are going to talk about it and come up to you and say stuff. Say stuff like, ‘Ya’ll are ranked this or that, what are your thoughts?’ Probably not something I’m going to pay close attention to because it really doesn’t matter until the end,” Bryant said.
ETIENNE BOUNCES BACK
Clemson running back Travis Etienne fumbled on his first carry of the game Saturday night against Georgia Tech, but the freshman bounced back to rush for 43 yards, including a touchdown, in Clemson’s 24-10 victory.
Etienne averaged 6.1 yards per carry and also had a 27-yard kick return as he didn’t let the early mistake linger for the rest of the game.
“I just told him, ‘Listen, it’s a wet night. We’ve just got to hold on to it,’” Swinney said. “I told him, ‘Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs, but he struck out 1,383 times.’ … He’s a young guy, it’s a monsoon out there… I told him he was going to have to go back in. So it was good to see him get back in there and do some good things. He’ll continue to grow from that.”
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
Clemson’s offense threw the ball down the field several times against Georgia Tech after not taking many deep shots against Syracuse, but the Tigers did not connect on as many deep throws as they would have liked.
Scott is hoping that will change this weekend against N.C. State and for the rest of the season.
“We did take some opportunities down the field. We just didn’t hook them up,” he said. “That’s something we want to be able to improve on, and I think that we will as we go forward and definitely want to be able to maybe put teams away.”