For the first time since 1981, Clemson is 9-0.

For the first time since 1981, Clemson is the No. 1-ranked team in the country.

For the first time since 2011, Clemson is headed to the ACC Championship Game.

And just like they were one week ago, the Tigers are not satisfied.

“There is no satisfaction other than I’m glad we are having a great season,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “I’m very happy about that. It is fun to see Clemson so highly thought of. We certainly, prefer that other than being undefeated and being twentieth in the country.”

As the Tigers enter this week’s game at Syracuse, it sits in a place where only two Clemson teams have been before them. In 1948, Clemson stayed hungry enough to knock off a bad Citadel team, 20-0, to stay undefeated. In 1981, with the entire world paying attention, those second-ranked Tigers dispatched off a bad Maryland squad, 21-7, to clinch the ACC Championship.

Of course the 1948 Tigers, led by running back Fred Cone, finished the season undefeated with an 11-0 record and ranked No. 11 in the final Associated Press Poll. The 1981 Tigers, led by quarterback Homer Jordan and linebacker Jeff Davis, finished the year 12-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country.

So what did those two Clemson teams have that made them so different from the other 119 teams in Clemson’s rich history? What allowed them to stay focused for some many weeks and not stumble along the way?

“The coaching staff did a good job of keeping us focused, keeping our goals out there and understanding that some great things can happen if we keep on playing the way we had been playing,” Davis said. “I think that’s why we won the national championship because we never really bought into the hype.

“We never bought into how great we were. It was more important for us to prove how great we were game in and game out.”

In other words, they took it one game at a time, and stayed hungry to prove they were better than that team in front of them, not the one or two that followed.

“I think our guys have earned their way where they are, not that you are No. 1 or whatever, but to just be in the conversation,” Swinney said. “That’s really all it means and we embrace it. We want to win them all. If you want to win them all, you can’t win 12 until you win 10 so we have to put everything we can into this game and then move onto the next one.”

So that means right now, though Clemson fans and media alike are thinking about the College Football Playoffs and what might be out there, the Tigers are just thinking about Syracuse and what they need to do to get to 10-0.

“You keep fighting each and every week with all that you have and try to find ways to win and that’s all we are going to continue to do,” Swinney said.

That’s all he and the Tigers need to do.