TAMPA, Fla. — The way Dabo Swinney sees it, everything goes in twos, and he hopes that’s the case for his Clemson Tigers in Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship Game against Alabama.

During his time at Clemson, Swinney has guided the Tigers to two ACC Championships, five Atlantic Division Championships, five straight bowl victories and six straight 10-win seasons. Now, for a second year in a row, the Tigers are playing for a national championship.

“For our program, and where we are now as a program, everything we have done once we have done multiple times, and somewhere along the line we are going to get it done and hopefully, it is on this trip,” Swinney said after the Tigers landed in Tampa on Friday.

Unlike last year, Clemson just isn’t happy to be in the national title game. The Tigers knew they would get back here, and this time they are coming with a whole different mentality.

“We want to finish the deal,” Swinney said. “It is not an easy task and we all know that. This is a team that has won 26 in a row. We have a lot of work to do. All you can ask for is an opportunity. We got that and we are going to do everything we can to see if we can get a different result.”

In the last two seasons, Alabama is 28-1, including a 26-game winning streak. The Tigers are 27-2 during that same span.

“The two best teams are here. There is not any doubt about that,” Swinney said. “They have been the standard for all of college football. Everybody has been trying to catch up with them a little bit, and for us it just says we have become an incredibly consistent program. We have competed a very high level.”

In matchups like this, Swinney says every little bit of experience helps, but in the end it will have nothing to do with the game itself.

“We have two teams that are going to play their hearts out,” he said. “There is no doubt about that. Hopefully, we will play a little smarter. And hopefully we can make those three or four plays. We did not make them last year, but they did. That is what it is going to take.”

And what would winning Monday’s game mean to the Clemson program.

“It would mean a ton. That is the next step for us,” Swinney said. “That is the only thing we have not done. It kind of completes the circle for us and once you do it once, you can do it again. I know it happened a long time ago for us in 1981 … We have a great champion we have to go through, and you know what, that is the way it should be. I would not want it any other way.”