CLEMSON — Dabo Swinney has publicly never said the goal for any of his Clemson teams was to win a national championship.

That is not what the Tigers’ head coach does. Of Clemson’s five goals, the last one is “win the closer,” which could be a regular season finale, a bowl game or a national championship game. But nowhere in Clemson’s Allen Reeves Football Complex will you see the goal is to win a national championship.

However, no one is telling the players on the 2023 Clemson Football Team that is the case. Going back to Tyler Davis’ comments last month at the ACC Football Kickoff, the Tigers have been upfront about what their goal is for 2023.

Davis said one of the reasons he decided to return to Clemson for one more year was to win a national championship.

“Why not have this chance to go win a natty, knowing I got the best linebacker duo and got guys like JP, Sheridan, Nate, Wiggins, RJ Mickens, Andrew Mukuba back there in the secondary, why not just go and have one of the best defenses and go win a natty,” he said.

“I mean, we come here. That’s one of our goals,” Davis continued. “We come here to graduate and win a championship and to leave better prepared as a man. I would say yes, to have a successful season, you have to win a championship of some sort.”

Since Davis’ statement, his teammates have said the same thing.

Linebacker Barrett Carter did not hesitate on saying what his goal for the new season is when Kelsey Riggs asked him on the ACCN’s ACC Road Trip show.

“Lead my team to a national championship, whatever that looks like,” he said. “For me personally, I don’t (care). Whatever I can do to help us achieve that goal.”

Clemson has not played for a national championship since its 2020 loss to LSU in New Orleans to conclude the 2019 season. That year marked the Tigers’ fourth appearance in the tile game in five years, dating back to the 2015 season.

Clemson won the 2016 National Championship thanks to leaders like Deshaun Watson and Ben Boulware. It won it again in 2018, as Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne, along with Christian Wilkins and a defensive front that arguably was the best in the history of college football.

However, the 2018 Tigers, the first college football team to go 15-0 since 1897, was not as boastful and confident as this year’s group appears to be, at least not to the media.

This year’s defensive front has the chance to rival the 2018 team and with new offensive coordinator Garrett Riley and new quarterback Cade Klubnik running the offense, maybe there is something to their claims.

“Us being in the 2019 class, we got a taste of it our freshman year,” cornerback Sheridan Jones said. “Some of us got to play and some of us really didn’t. We got a feel for it. Ever since then we have not gotten back, but we know that we can.

“Just knowing we have the ability. We have the talent. We have the team. We have everything we need. We just want to make sure we go all the way. Like I said early that 2019 class is the only class that has not won a national championship. That is one thing we want to change. We want to change the script.”

With the narrative they are throwing out there, and based on years past, this year’s Tigers are definitely changing the script.

“Every team is best in their own way. But for me, seeing everybody from top to bottom, the depth, the love for the game, the gel we have, I feel like this is really our best shot,” Jones said.

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