Clemson is Four Quarters from Playing for the Ultimate Goal

For the Clemson Tigers, their mind is not wandering ahead to the “what ifs." Their focus is on one thing and one thing only — the four quarters that involve Ohio State.

Four quarters.

That is all that separates the 2019 Clemson Tigers from a return trip to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.

Four quarters. Sixty minutes of football for a chance to achieve back-to-back 15-0 seasons, back-to-back historic seasons and back-to-back national titles. Three-thousand, six-hundred seconds away from having an opportunity that 126 other teams in college football can only dream about.

But for the Clemson Tigers, their mind is not wandering ahead to the “what ifs." Their focus is on one thing and one thing only — the four quarters that involve Ohio State.

“My mind right now is just on Ohio State,” linebacker Chad Smith said. “You know, my mind has not even been thinking about the next game. To me, this feels like the national championship for me. Because if we don’t win this game, there is no other game.

“This could very well be my very last game as a college football player. So, I’m just taking it one game at a time and only thinking about Ohio State.”

It is that mindset that has been, maybe, the biggest reason that the Tigers now find themselves back in the College Football Playoff for a fifth straight season with an opportunity to make a return trip to the national championship.

It is a mindset that the players hear about daily from their head coach, Dabo Swinney.

Whether it is having a “windshield mentality,” meaning only looking ahead at the next game and not in the past, or “the next game is the biggest game of the season,” Swinney’s words are not just clichés or slogans to be placed on T-shirts — they are words that the Tigers live by.

“We understand that this game is the biggest game of the year. Not because it is the playoff or the Fiesta Bowl, but because it is the next game for us,” Smith said. “It is not just a saying or something that coach says to be neat, we believe it. It is what allows us to prepare for every team the same.

“Whether it is South Carolina State or Florida State or Ohio State — we are going to prepare the same way because we understand that importance of every single game and we can’t achieve our goals if we aren’t focused on this one.”

While the Tigers are focused on this one, against Ohio State, they understand what is at stake.

"We know what is at stake. We aren’t blind to it,” quarterback Trevor Lawrence said. “We know that if we do not take care of business this week then everything we wanted this season is over — done. We know what is at stake and that is why you are going to see our best football of the year."