Tony Elliott: Clemson Understands What it Takes to Beat Notre Dame

Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott says that the Tigers have been in these situations before and know exactly what it will take to beat Notre Dame in the ACC Championship Game.

If Clemson is going to win a sixth consecutive ACC Championship, they will have to do something they were unable to do back in November, and that is beat Notre Dame.

Severely undermanned, including not having starting quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the third-ranked Tigers fell to the Fighting Irish 47-40 in double overtime in South Bend.

Lawrence is back for the ACC Championship Game though and offensive coordinator Tony Elliott says having been on this stage before, this Clemson team knows exactly what it will take to come away with a win on Saturday.

"We've been in games like this before," Elliott said. "We understand what it takes and we have to make sure that we do a great job the rest of this week to get ourselves ready to play our best football for four quarters come Saturday afternoon."

Not having Lawrence in the earlier matchup didn't keep the Clemson offense from having success through the air. Freshman D.J. Uiagalelei was phenomenal in his first career road start, throwing for 439 yards, and 2 touchdowns. It was the most passing yards Notre Dame has ever allowed in a single game.

However, having Lawrence back does make a difference. The junior quarterback has seen it all and it is that kind of experience that can make all the difference in games of this magnitude, particularly when it comes to the zone-reads the Tigers rely so heavily on at times.

"I thought D.J. did a did a great job," Elliott said. "The only thing that may may have gone a little bit different is Trevor may have had a little more confidence to pull a couple of his own reads because there was some great looks, kind of either-or and maybe Trevor has a little bit more confidence because he's been in those situations to pull that ball to help to help make the offense right."

While the Tigers were successful throwing the ball in that first game, rushing yards were much tougher to come by. The Irish were able to hold Travis Etienne to just 28 yards on 18 carries and as a team the Tigers averaged just 1 YPC.

Elliott says that if the Tigers are to expect a different result this weekend in Charlotte, the running game has to be more productive and more efficient, and that the interior of the offensive line has to play much better.

"We understand going into this game there's several things we got to do better," Elliott said. "We've got to establish the running game. We got to be efficient running the football, we weren't very efficient. We got to do some things to help our guys and really just got to play better in the interior offensive line."