Clemson safety Jayron Kearse says next Saturday’s annual grudge match with archrival South Carolina “is just another game” on the schedule as they try to earn a berth in the College Football Playoffs.

Head coach Dabo Swinney spent a lot of time during his Sunday teleconference with the media explaining why what happened in last year’s 35-17 victory at Death Valley, and in any of the previous years, has nothing to do with this year’s game, which will be a noon kickoff in Columbia.

So far South Carolina Week has been in complete contrast of last year’s approach when countdown clocks were posted all over the football facility as the Tigers focused in on the much anticipated game with their biggest rival in hopes of ending a five-game losing streak to USC.

“I don’t really have any thoughts other than you just keep working. You keep your head down and you keep plugging along and you focus on the things you can control,” Swinney said. “Don’t let one game define you. That’s what we have done as a program. The teams that we lost to at South Carolina were really good teams that a lot of people lost to. They had a nice run and sometimes those things are kind of cyclical.”

Before last year’s win to end the five-game losing streak in the series, beating South Carolina was one of the few things Swinney had not accomplished during his time as the full-time head coach. His only win in the series prior to 2014 came in 2008 when he was still the interim coach.

Now that he has got the monkey off his back, plus the fact the Gamecocks have lost four straight games, including Saturday’s 23-22 shocker to The Citadel, and are 3-8 coming into next week’s game, Swinney wants his team to keep their eye on what’s important and understand USC will be coming after them for more reasons than one next Saturday in Columbia.

The Gamecocks would love nothing more than to spoil Clemson’s bid at the College Football Playoffs.

“We are just trying to be the best that we can be at Clemson, and that’s a game we have not done very well in the past few years so it was good last year to get back on top, but that was last year,” Swinney said. “It’s all about this game now and these four quarters. Everybody will forget about last year real quick and they will forget about last week real quick if you do not play well this week.

“That’s our mentality that we have each and every week. It’s not just playing well against South Carolina. We want to put our best foot forward for each and every game. But we are focused on being the best we can be here at Clemson.”

Swinney’s players seem to get it.

“We are not trying to jump up to the (ACC Championship Game or Playoffs) right now. We still have South Carolina. They are going to come out there, they’re playing for nothing, they will want to spoil what we are doing,” Kearse said. “We really can’t afford to look ahead at stuff like that. We need to close out the season and then the post season will take care of itself.”

Kearse, a junior, doesn’t think about USC’s old five-game winning streak because he is 1-1 against South Carolina, and like his coach, all that matters now is what happens in next week’s game against the Gamecocks.

“(The seniors) were here when South Carolina was dominating and South Carolina was the (Gamecocks’) state and things like that,” he said. “But I never really experienced them being as dominate as some of those guys so to me I just see it as another game. They are our rival, but I just see it as another football game.”

The Gamecocks are another opponent on the way to what possibly could be the first undefeated regular season at Clemson since the Tigers went 11-0 in 1981 on its way to the national championship that year.

“All I know, our older guys certainly understand (winning last year) was something we needed to get corrected and get changed,” Swinney said. “That senior class last year was pretty special because they got us back on the right track and on the right side of things.

“We want all of these guys to leave here with winning records against their in-state in-rival, and against all of their opponents. But you have to prepare each and every week. We won last year because we had a great plan. We executed our plan and we played with great effort. We took care of the ball and we found a way to win the game. That’s all we need to focus on. Not anything about the past or anything like that because that has nothing to do with this game.

“There are a lot of guys that have not been here. Our sophomores are 1-0, and hopefully when they leave here they will still be on that side of things.”