COLLEGE FOOTBALL

The 3-0 defending national champions remain atop the college football polls, put up 600-plus yards of offense on 2 of their first 3 opponents but have yet to play a complete game.

And they are focused on getting better.

“It’s all about improving... it’s not about the outside expectations, the outside noise,” co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott said. “From the outside, everybody is going to want this offense to be perfect.

“We can’t worry about that. We have to worry about playing to our standard, and we haven’t quite played to our standard for four quarters. And still have a had a lot of success, so it’s encouraging to think about what we can do when we do play to that standard... And we are not far off. It’s just a few plays here and there and the consistency. I think that will come.”

Even when the Tigers begin to fire on all cylinders, there is still room to teach and improve. They understand being the best team in college football means getting everyone’s best shot.

“It’s still good early in the year to go in that film room and coach and guys see they have a lot of things to improve,” Scott said. “It’s good to keep our guys hungry this early. The goal is to get better each week, and even though we haven’t gotten to that top ceiling where we want to be, I do feel like we’re improving and getting close.”

If there has been one area of concern for the Tigers it would be their lack of success on downfield shots.

Most of the media and fan base immediately look towards quarterback Trevor Lawrence for answers.

Scott believes a combination of the quarterback, the wide receivers and simply teams giving unexpected different looks has led to a lack of big plays down the field.

“It’s a matter of guys seeing it, learning from it,” Scott said. “We got some different coverages tonight than we got the first two games.

“Even though we expect to win all those matchups, we didn’t. So there will be guys watching video and learning from some of their releases and going back in practice and focusing on those things.”

Clemson plays host to Charlotte at 7:30 pm on the ACC Network. It can also be heard on radio at WCOS (1400 AM), WGFG

(105.3 FM) and WPUB (102.7 FM).