Which teams will show up in Charlotte? Even the coaches don't know

Mack Brown (left) and Swinney pose with the ACC trophy.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sat Dec 03 10:09:34 GMT-04:00 2022

CHARLOTTE, NC – Nobody knows which teams are going to show up.

As the Clemson football team walked around Bank of America Stadium Friday afternoon, a huddle of reporters and network analysts watched as photos were taken and players and coaches took in the sight of an almost-empty stadium. The same question was posed over and over and over. What do think will happen tomorrow night? The answer was almost universally the same – this one is hard to predict because no one has any idea which teams will show up.

Will it be the Clemson team that has an attacking defense and an offense with a pulse? Will it be the North Carolina team that ran roughshod over its competition with a highlight-reel offense? Will it be the Clemson team that struggles offensively, with turnovers and dropped passes galore and a defense that misses tackles? Will it be the North Carolina team that had a shot at the College Football Playoff but inexplicably lost two home games to backup quarterbacks?

Nobody knows, not even the coaches.

“Yeah, college football has gotten crazy. You don't ever know who's going to win anymore,” UNC head coach Mack Brown said. “It's interesting, I've always really tried to look at emotion and confidence and energy for college football. A lot of times people lose their rival game right before a championship game because they're so excited about what's next, and we haven't played as well on offense since we clinched the coastal at Wake Forest. They're probably looking toward this.

“You try and you talk to them about it and you tell them but it's still out there. I remember Steve Spurrier couldn't beat Coach Bowden, and he always said I'm not as worried about the Florida State game as I am the SEC Championship game, and I always thought that was really unique because the people in your state want you to beat your rival. So it gets a little confusing in there, and you've got to beat everybody in order to make everybody happy. I think that Clemson and North Carolina for an ACC Championship game would be played at such a high level anyway, I don't think last week's games will have anything to do with tomorrow night.”

Clemson’s Dabo Swinney was asked what he wanted to see during the game, and he said he would love to see a game where the Tigers win the turnover margin. Clemson has turned it over 15 times in the last five games.

“Well, I'd love a perfect game. That would be a great place to start, yeah. We didn't have that for sure,” Swinney said. “But the biggest thing is I'd like to see us win the margin. We had seven games, we had three offensive turnovers and we've had 15 in five games. That's tough sledding. It's not that I haven't seen -- I have seen us do that, but that's where I would start. I'd like to see us win the margin tomorrow night. I think that would be a good thing to see.”

Swinney then said he thinks he will have no problem motivating his team even though the Playoff is off the table.

“There are only four teams that go to the playoff, and we've been there six times, and that's probably about the most of anybody. It's hard to do that. It's really hard,” Swinney said. “This is what we're playing for, right here. Those are all great things, but those are things that come when you win your league. We know what's at stake. I wish we were perfect. We weren't perfect this year. Everybody tries to -- everybody goes into their season, you try to be perfect and you put everything you've got into every single week, and you've got a lot of people involved. You count them all up at the end of the year, and we're not 12-0, we're 10-2.

“Yeah, we won't have the opportunity to go in the Final Four, but whether we were 12-0 or 10-2, we still need to win that. Nothing has changed from that standpoint. Everything for us is about winning the ACC. It's a goal of ours. Then the next goal is to win the closer, whatever that is. Again, we could be 12-0, win it, and on a particular year somebody not vote you in. You don't have any control over that. Our goal is to win this league. What happened last week has nothing to do with this week. Never has, never will. You've got to go on to the next game, just like the next season or whatever it may be.”