CHARLOTTE – SMU safety Isaiah Nwokobia wasted no time sharing what game is circled on his calendar at the ACC Kickoff at the Uptown Hilton in Charlotte Tuesday.

While many athletes choose to defer this question, saying that every game is important, or winning the opener is the highest priority, the Dallas native decided not to shroud his answer from the media.

When asked what games he was looking forward to this season, the junior did not even hesitate long enough to hear the entire question. Nwokobia had his mind made up. He is ready to rematch the Clemson Tigers. 

“Clemson,” he said. “No doubt about it. I can’t wait to go up there to their crib and put on a show. I’m excited for that challenge. I know they beat us, and I’m big on competition so I want the best of the best and right now they’re the defending champs so that’s the biggest game I’ve got circled right there.”

The Tigers took down the Mustangs in the ACC Championship game in Charlotte last December to clinch a spot in the College Football Playoff and claim their second conference title in three years. Before the game, SMU held a perfect 8-0 record in conference-play and fought back from a 17-point deficit to challenge the Tigers, only to lose on a last-second, 56-yard field goal.

A half-year later and a half-mile from the Bank of America Stadium, where the Tigers claimed victory, the championship loss still rings as Nwokobia’s main motivator.

“The ACC Championship, one-thousand percent,” he said when asked about his reasoning. “They’re the best team in the conference, they won the championship and they got the bragging rights right now so I want to go take that.”

To claim bragging rights, Nwokobia and the Mustangs will have to pry a victory from the jaws of Clemson’s Memorial Stadium, where the Tigers have a 64-4 record in the last ten years. The game will mark the second time in program history that the two teams have matched up, and the first at Death Valley.

Though playing for 80,000 fans in Clemson will be daunting, SMU has recent experience with playing in a hostile atmosphere. In the first round of the CFP last season, the Mustangs traveled to Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, which boasts a 106,572-person capacity, the second-largest in the country, to take on the Nittany Lions. Though they lost 38-10, Nwokobia believes that that experience in “chaos” will help the Mustangs prepare to play Clemson.

“It was different playing in front of 100,000 people,” he said about Penn State. “You couldn’t hear anything. In practice, we were trying to replicate that sound. You can try and replicate that sound in the indoor (facility) by having the speakers turned too loud, but there’s nothing like the real thing. The adrenaline that you get… I think having that experience is going to help all of our composure and our ability to remain steadfast in the biggest moments.”

Nwokobia and the Mustangs will have their chance to take back bragging rights on October 18, when SMU will travel to Clemson. Six weeks earlier, The Mustangs open their season with East Texas A&M on August 30, while Clemson will open against LSU.