ATLANTA — Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney chuckled when a reporter from Columbia, S.C, asked him to defend the Tigers’ 2019 football schedule due to “maybe the lack of competition in the ACC.”

“Boy that is a loaded question, isn’t,” said Swinney, who was at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta Wednesday for the MacArthur Trophy Presentation as the 2018 College Football National Champion.

Here is the question Swinney was asked.

“Coach, I was talking to Will Muschamp last night, who is starting his Spurs Up Tour and we talked about the schedule. I know there has been a lot comparison between South Carolina’s and Clemson’s schedule, and people say you have a very easy schedule and South Carolina one of the hardest. He felt like, ‘Hey, we have a difficult schedule every year.’ Do you feel the same, as far as Clemson, despite, you know maybe the lack of competition in the ACC?”

“Man, I couldn’t disagree more by the way you’d phrased the question,” Swinney said. “There is no lack of competition in our league. There is a reason why we have won two out of the last three national championships, and it is not because we don’t play anybody. We have played everybody.

“We have played Alabama three times in the national championship. We played Ohio State. We played Oklahoma. We play Texas A&M. We play South Carolina every year. Our league, I think we had eleven bowl teams this year, ten the year before and eleven the year before that. Our league is incredibly competitive and deep.”

Swinney pointed to the ACC’s postseason success the last few years as an example of how competitive and deep the ACC has become. The Clemson coach pointed to Wake Forest’s win over Texas A&M in a bowl game a couple of years ago and Virginia’s win over South Carolina in last year’s Belk Bowl as just a few examples of how good the conference is.

Of course, his own team beat the SEC Champions by 28 points in the national championship game this past January. The Tigers also beat Alabama in the 2017 title game and is 10-2 overall against SEC competition since 2015.

“We had great success in the postseason, but the reason we have been successful is (because of) how our league prepares us,” Swinney said. “And then we step out of our league and we play people. For example, we play Texas A&M. We play South Carolina. I think that is great conversation for people and for whatever reason, people never really want to give the ACC the respect it deserves.”

The ACC has won three of the last six National Championships and has played for the title four times overall during that span. Florida State won the 2013 National Championship and Clemson played for it in 2015.

“No one is going to be excited to play any team from this league,” Swinney said. “This is a great league. Now, that does not mean we are better than anyone else. Just watch the draft. You can look over probably the last five years or so.

“I think the SEC and the ACC … I don’t even think it is close from a draft pick standpoint. I think it is us two and it’s way apart. This is a great league. Our schedule is going to be a very big challenge. It is going to be very difficult. Nobody knows anything about any team right now.”

There is nothing easy about Clemson’s first three weeks of the season. The Tigers open the year against Georgia Tech on Aug. 29 and then Texas A&M comes to down on Sept. 7. They travel to Syracuse in Week 3 on Sept. 14.

“All I can tell you is that we have not been consistent because we do not play anybody,” Swinney said. “You have to play well, and you have to be prepared to play well, especially when you get to postseason.”