By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort
CLEMSON — Xavier Brewer says it’s time for Clemson to stop all the chatter about playing with and beating Southeastern Conference teams and just go out and prove it.
“I feel like we recruit the type of talent to definitely play with them so we just have to go out and prove it,” the defensive back said. “There is nothing more we can talk about. We just have to go out and play.”
The last time the Tigers had a chance to prove it they got smacked in the mouth by a better and more physical South Carolina team on Nov. 24. The Gamecocks beat Clemson at the point of attack as they sacked quarterback Tajh Boyd six times on defense, while controlling the football for more than 40 minutes on offense.
The 13th-ranked Tigers will now get a chance at redemption on New Year’s Eve when they play No. 7 LSU in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
“The SEC is definitely the premiere conference in the country, not just in the South,” Brewer said. “They have proven that because they win the games they need to win. They win the big games and they win all of their bowl games.
“This is just another opportunity for us to prove we are at that elite level and that we can play with guys like that.”
So far Clemson is 1-1 against the SEC this season. The Tigers opened the year with a 26-19 win over Auburn in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic in the Georgia Dome, before falling to South Carolina, 27-17, last month.
Against Auburn, Clemson rushed for 320 yards on 52 carries and controlled the line of scrimmage for the most part. The story was different in the regular-season finale. The Gamecocks limited Clemson to 145 yards on the ground and held the Tigers to under 100 yards of total offense in the second half.
“This is a great opportunity for us,” center Dalton Freeman said. “LSU is a national contender every year so for us to kind of go out and prove who we say we are, these are the games we need to win.”
Clemson (10-2) has done a good job of becoming a more consistent program than it has in year’s past. In the last two years, the Tigers have recorded back-to-back 10-win seasons. They won 13 straight games home games, they won an ACC Championship and played in a BCS Bowl game.
But the one flaw the Tigers have according to their critics is the fact they can’t stand tall against really good SEC teams. LSU (10-2) will be the fourth SEC team that has won at least 10 games in the last three years to play Clemson. The Tigers are 0-3 in the other three previous meetings.
“We are becoming a more consistent program if you look back at our track record the last two years,” Freeman said. “But to be a national contender such as LSU, Alabama and teams like that, teams that are in the mix each and every year, we need to win games like this to get on that level.”