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A close call should benefit Clemson in the long run

An open date for Clemson means the Tigers have had plenty of time to debrief after the 21-20 win at Chapel Hill.

Clemson has had plenty of time to digest what happened in Chapel Hill. The Tigers slipped from first in the rankings to second but that was a small price to pay for what a one-point will potentially do and that's show the players they are not invincible.

"Every game's not going to be a blowout," said offensive lineman John Simpson.

"He (Dabo Swinney) always says. You win by one point. You win by 50 points. You still win. Nobody was really like, ecstatic about winning  by  one point. But it's still a win. It's still a win in the win column."

Fellow offensive lineman Gage Cervenka says it's about what the Tigers can learn from the close win.

"We take what we learn from each game and move on and just mature from there and learn from that," he said.

"I mean I think that's what a veteran team does. They take what they had in the past, like last week, and learn from that. Some teams it's hard to learn from mistakes, I guess. And that's one thing we strive to be elite is learn frm our mistakes and grow as a program. That's something big we did last year. We didn't have the best first couple of games. But we got better as the season progressed. That's just something we want to focus on."

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