Clemson Football: Can the Tigers come out hot in September?
The 2019 Clemson football team needs to begin the season a little more smoothly than it has in the past few years. Can the Tigers come out hot?
It’s not about being the best version of yourself in September and October.
Dabo Swinney has always talked about progressing through the season and building the Clemson football program for the “Championship Phase.”
The Tigers have not come out looking like world beaters in the opening few games of their past seasons. Clemson struggled with Troy back in 2016, the year that the Tigers went on to win the first National Championship since 1981. Last season, Clemson football played a down-to-the-wire game with Texas A&M and then rallied from behind to beat Syracuse just a couple of weeks later.
There are other examples of this, as well.
Because of that, they’ve put themselves in position to play some tight games early in the season and have come out on top, even though in many cases it was just by a thread.
As we head into the 2019 Clemson football season, I’m interested to see if the Tigers can come out in another gear compared to season in the past.
It’s not necessarily that Clemson needs to come out hitting on all cylinders early on. Dabo Swinney is going to pace this team and he’s going to get them ready for Championship Phase as he always does.
However, arguably the two toughest games of the season happen in the first three weeks. Clemson will host Texas A&M and then go on the road to face Syracuse. If the Tigers can get through those two games unscathed, they’ll have a great chance at getting through the rest of the season unbeaten.
To do that, they don’t have to play their ‘A’ game. But, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to see this team come out a little hotter than usual to open the season.
Not only would opening up the season looking like a championship team help the Tigers get through the first few games with wins, but it would also stop any narratives from forming before they even got started.
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Clemson doesn’t need to play its best games in September. The Tigers need to save those for December and January, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to see them play a little hotter than normal in September.