CLEMSON – Bryant Wesco is convinced the pressure is not on Clemson to make it to the ACC Championship Game in Charlotte on Dec. 7. Instead, he thinks the pressure is on the other ACC teams not to give the Tigers a chance to advance.

“We got to, instead of putting all the pressure on us, put pressure on everybody else,” the wide receiver said. “Put pressure on those two other teams that are ahead of us at the moment… we just got to play Clemson football, and then hopefully, as the time goes on, a lot could happen, and that’ll end up getting us to where we want to go.

“That Louisville game, we can’t really control. We got to control what we can control at the moment.”

With their loss to Louisville on Nov. 2, the 17-ranked Tigers picked up their second defeat of the season and lost the ability to control their own path to Charlotte.

Clemson now needs No. 11 Miami (9-1, 5-1 ACC) to lose one of its remaining two games or No. 12 SMU (9-1, 6-0) to lose both of its last games or Virginia beat SMU and Virginia Tech and the Cardinals lose to Pitt.

However, Wesco is not examining what the College Football Playoff committee is saying or where analysts predict Clemson will finish in the rankings. 

He is focused on what the Tigers can control — and that is how they play against The Citadel on Saturday and against No. 18 South Carolina on Nov. 30.

“We just got to be able to finish how we play and then not worry about all that outside stuff, what the committee is saying or what you know everybody else is saying, who’s going into the playoffs or not,” Wesco said. “We know that if we finish how we want to finish, and then stuff happens here and there, you know we could very well make it to that stage that we wanted to get to.”

Despite only being part of Clemson’s program since January, Wesco already attributes his mindset to head coach Dabo Swinney’s beliefs.

“[Swinney’s] been in this business for a long time,” the freshman said. “All the things he says, you know it’s not just some crap he’s saying, you know he’s actually been on both sides of it. Worrying about it, I’m assuming it gets to him, and not worrying about it and it works for him. So, the stuff that he tells us, you got to know how to apply it and then just trust him.”