ACC Teams Have Clemson Game Circled

Sammy Watkins scores a touchdown against Wake last season. (TigerNet Staff)

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Fri Jul 26 13:02:18 GMT-04:00 2013

The Clemson Tigers were the“it” team during the ACC Kickoff in Greensboro last weekend, with quarterback Tajh Boyd Tajh Boyd
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They might as well have had a big old bulls eye on their back.

Being the “it” team and the favorite to take home the division crown and conference title shows the amount of respect the rest of the league has for Swinney’s program, but with that comes all of the expectations and pressure of being the favorite.

The voting shows the Tigers as not just the favorite to win the league, but the overwhelming favorite. Clemson received 95 votes as this year’s preseason favorite to win the ACC, while Florida State received just 15. Clemson received 102 first-place votes in the Atlantic Division while the Noles - the defending ACC champs - got 18. Clemson quarterback Tajh Boyd also received 105 of 120 votes for the ACC’s preseason player of the year.

Welcome to the land of expectations.

That also means that most of the teams on Clemson’s schedule have that game marked down in big red letters, according to Wake Forest wide receiver Michael Campanaro ,and the friendly trash talk has already begun.

“I don’t know if it’s a team mindset, but I think everyone has that game circled,” Campanaro told TigerNet.” I think we lost a heartbreaker to them my sophomore year. I thought we had that game and were about to pull the upset. A lot of the guys who played in that game are still on the team so we’re excited to get back down there. I’m friends with Tajh so we’re always talking trash back and forth just for fun.”

Maryland quarterback C.J. Brown said the Terrapins want to end their ACC run on a high note, and a win over the preseason favorites is something Maryland players are already thinking about.

“All of the games on the calendar are important, but there are specific games you have marked down and you are already looking forward to,” Brown said. “Those are big-time games. You know Clemson is going to be good, and we expect those games to be our prime-time games.”

Campanaro said that Clemson is just one of those teams he loves to play.

“I think playing Clemson just gets you up. They are such a good team,” Campanaro said. “When you think of Clemson, you think of Tajh Boyd and you think of Death Valley. And, going to Death Valley this year, that’s going to be a huge game. We have it circled on our calendar. I love playing there. It’s probably my favorite stadium to play at. Hopefully we can go in there and create some turnovers and maybe pull an upset. They are a great team and it’s going to be fun playing against those guys. It was rough last year. They put a butt whooping on us in front of a national television audience. We’re going to try to give them a better game this year.”

Campanaro said that when he isn’t playing Clemson, he becomes a Tiger fan.

“They have some great receivers. They have an awesome receiving corps,” he said. “They definitely have lots of playmakers. [Nuk] Hopkins who went in the first round. Sammy [Watkins] will go in the first round. Tajh is just orchestrating it all. As a fan, when they aren’t playing us, it’s fun to watch. They are tough. They have good running backs. Their system with those players makes that offense tough to stop. I think my sophomore year, when we almost beat them; we created a lot of turnovers. When you are playing an offense like that, you’ve just got to create a lot of turnovers because you have to score points. It’s about containing them. They are definitely fun to watch.”

For Brown, however, it comes down to a simple theme: knocking off the top dog.

“You always get up for those big games, and Clemson will be the big game this season,” he said. “When someone is the top dog, you want to knock them off.”