Dabo Swinney is well aware of the challenge that lies ahead.

Clemson’s head coach knows his team has a major test at hand with their upcoming matchup against Miami, the ACC favorite and a nationally ranked top-10 team.

The Tigers will host the Hurricanes, last year’s national runner-up, at Memorial Stadium on Saturday. It’s a primetime kickoff set for 7:30 p.m. on ABC.

After Clemson’s 24-10 win at Cal on Friday night, Swinney looked ahead to the Miami game, calling the Hurricanes possibly “the best team in the country” and affectionately describing their star quarterback, Darian Mensah, as a “freak show.”

“Obviously we know we’ve got a tough challenge next week,” Swinney said. “They may be the best team in the country. They played in the national championship. They’re really good. I’ve seen enough of them. We’ve seen that quarterback. He’s a freak show. They’ve got some dudes.”

Clemson (3-1, 2-0 ACC) and Miami (4-0, 2-0) are both unblemished in ACC play to this point.

Swinney acknowledged the difficulty of the matchup while framing it as an early measuring stick and “huge opportunity” for the Tigers.

“At the end of the day, you’re both undefeated in the league, and all you can ask for is opportunity. So, it’ll be a huge opportunity,” Swinney said. “We’ll have to play, by far, our best game to have a chance to beat those guys. But we’ve got to have a great week and great preparation, and spot the ball and see if we can do just that.”

Miami is coming off a 52-3 home domination of Central Michigan on Saturday. The Hurricanes opened the season with a 45-6 trouncing at Stanford, followed by a 77-7 romp vs. Florida A&M and a 33-20 win at Wake Forest.

After getting blown out 51-10 by LSU in the season opener, Clemson has bounced back with three straight victories, most recently Friday’s win at Cal. Before that, the Tigers rallied to beat North Carolina at home, 28-20, and took care of business at home a week earlier with a 22-7 win over Georgia Southern.

The all-time series between the Tigers and Hurricanes is deadlocked at 7-7, but Clemson holds a 6-3 advantage in the series since Miami joined the ACC prior to the 2004 season.

After some early offseason betting lines favored Miami by a touchdown, the Hurricanes officially opened as a 17.5-point favorite for Saturday’s game, and it’s been more than two decades since Clemson was that kind of underdog on its home field.

Swinney knows the Tigers will have to play substantially cleaner and sharper football if they hope to pull off a massive upset Saturday.

“We’ll have to play much, much better in some areas and cut out some of these mistakes that we’ve made, and we certainly can’t turn the ball over as carelessly as we have,” Swinney said. “But hey, our kids will be excited to go battle.”