Tiger fans "a little spoiled"? Clemson linebacker wonders after 18-point win |
Clemson fans a little spoiled? Maybe, according to linebacker
James Skalski.
It’s easy to get a little bit spoiled when your favorite team has appeared in five consecutive College Football Playoffs, has won five consecutive ACC Atlantic Division titles and five consecutive ACC Championships. Add in four National Championship Game appearances and winning two National Championships, and the Tigers are in the midst of the type of run most college football programs can only dream about. Records seem to fall every week, Trevor Lawrence might just be the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s NFL Draft, and running back Travis Etienne is climbing the ladder and chasing records held by the all-time greats. In other words, great stuff is happening in Clemson, but some of it is a bit overshadowed by complaints about social justice messaging, COVID-19, the upcoming election, and the fact that some fans might be expecting just a little too much from a great football program. Skalski, the senior linebacker out of Georgia who has been around for much of this run, said he saw the chatter following an 18-point win over Virginia last week in which the Tigers led from start to finish and the outcome was never in doubt. “Yeah, I saw it,” Skalski said Monday. “We try not to look, but I saw something that we won by eighteen and we are complaining like we are getting a little spoiled.” The Cavaliers amassed 417 yards and quarterback Brennan Armstrong ran for 87 yards on a defense which isn’t used to surrendering those types of numbers. With Miami and dynamic quarterback D’Eriq King next on the schedule, some are wondering if the Tigers are good enough to stop the Hurricane attack. Skalski gets it. “Yes, I agree with the fans that it is not up to the standard and the elite level of play we want to play with. But at the same time, you have to give Virginia a lot of credit,” Skalski said. “I don’t think a lot of people understand, that is a good football team that creates a lot of problems. That is a great scheme and great coaching and they are getting better and better every year. Virginia is good. They can play ball. I don’t think people recognize that enough. “I think, looking at that … Yes, we look in the mirror. We look at things we did not do so well,” Skalski said. “We say to ourselves, ‘We could have done better, and we should have done better.’ Yes, we can all agree with that.” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was focused only on Miami during his press conference Tuesday. When asked if the ACC was good enough, he passed and merely said that Clemson always gets to the Playoffs because they’ve beaten good teams. When one reporter asked if the Playoff should expand from four to eight this season, he chided them and asked if they were already on board with Clemson losing. He went back-and-forth with another reporter who asked about the opening with the Houston Texans, and then wondered aloud if anyone was going to ask about Miami. When one reporter asked about “getting the run game going” this week, Swinney mentioned that Etienne had over 100 yards receiving and then said Clemson could be leading the country in several statistical categories if he operated his program that way in an effort to calm those who are suddenly worried about his football team. In other words, he will continue to play younger players at critical times and prepare his team for the end of the season. “We just go week in and week out. People talk about stats – we could be leading the country in every statistical category after three games if that’s what my objective was,” Swinney said. “If we wanted to be leading the nation in rushing right now, we could be doing that. But that’s not our objective around here. It’s to develop our team and prepare our team and to win the game that we are playing.”
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