With next week’s ACC Championship against No. 11 North Carolina looming, this question was bound to come up at some point this week?

“Do you think the focus on this game has to be crucial because a lot of these players may want to look ahead to the championship game next weekend and don’t realize they have South Carolina this weekend? Is that one of those things you’ve got to work on?”

Since Clemson, who travels to Columbia to play the Gamecocks on Saturday, began its runs as the No. 1 team in College Football, head coach Dabo Swinney has fielded this question and similar ones just about every week.

The week his Tigers played Louisville he was asked if it was possible his players might overlook the Cardinals in anticipation for the following game against Notre Dame. He was asked if his team might somehow overlook Miami, and then there was the trap game questions surrounding NC State, with an ACC battle against Florida State looming large the following week.

“Every week it’s been a trap game, it seems. Every week that’s the same rhetoric I get. At some point, people are going to quit asking me that because we’ve showed up and played every single week,” Swinney said. “So I don’t know why you think we’re not going to do that this week. Every game is the biggest game of the year for us.

“Every game is the biggest game of the year, and this game in particular is a complete season of its own. We prepare every week. We don’t ever think about next week because it’s truly a one-game season.”

Swinney has been down this road before with the Gamecocks, actually twice.

In 2009 his Clemson team journeyed to South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium as the ACC Atlantic Division title. They left there with their tails tucked between their legs thanks to a 34-17 loss. They came back to Columbia in 2011 in the exact situation, and again went back to Clemson with a defeat, 34-13.

So if there is anyone who understands the possible trap the Tigers might walk into on Saturday it is Swinney and his coaching staff.

“They’re a very tough team. You just look at their games,” Swinney said about the Gamecocks. “They have a lot of good players down there, a lot of good players. Pharoh Cooper is as good as there is in the SEC. Florida, they took to the wire. Tennessee, took to the wire. Texas A&M, took to the wire. These guys are very capable.”

But South Carolina is also 3-8 and is coming off a loss to The Citadel.

“It’s just irrelevant to what has happened last week or last year or whatever. It’s all about this game,” Swinney said.

Swinney’s players don’t see it that way, it seems. Linebacker Ben Boulware said he laughed when he heard South Carolina had lost to The Citadel, and tight end Jordan Leggett chuckled. That doesn’t sound like a team respecting its rival.

But Swinney isn’t worried about that. He knows his guys respect the Gamecocks and respect the environment they are going to walk into next week.

“Road games are hard to win especially when you go to a place with a tough environment. Their fan base is passionate about their team, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with the game,” Swinney said. “We just have to play well. It’s everything working together. We’ve been a good road team but this will be a big challenge for us for sure.

“Our job is to go play well and if we do, hopefully it won’t be very loud.”

And the Tigers will not be overlooking South Carolina.

“We live with this game every single day of the year. We kind of have the season, and then we have South Carolina around here,” Swinney said.