Ed Orgeron and Dabo Swinney have completely different approaches to championship game

LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron has a much different approach to the national championship game than Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.

If you’ve listened to the comments from LSU’s Ed Orgeron and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney this week, you’ve likely noticed a different tone emitting from each of the head coaches.

Swinney spent part of his media session on Saturday lamenting the fact that Clemson and LSU will play in New Orleans on Monday night.

The Clemson head coach said the matchup is essentially a home game for LSU.

Swinney’s comment wasn’t all that surprising. He’s spent much of the year trying to paint his team as an underdog (despite the fact they’ve won 29 straight games and are the defending national champions). I guess it’s a motivational tactic, but I’m not sure even his players believe his shtick at this point.

Clemson is good. Everyone on the planet that follows college football knows it.

Of course, LSU is good as well. And everyone knows it, too.

But we haven’t heard any silly motivational tactics from Ed Orgeron during his media sessions. Coach O is business as usual, keeping the sole focus on beating Clemson on Monday night.

Orgeron isn’t making this game bigger than any other game. He’s preparing his team as if this was any week.

Meanwhile, Dabo is making sure his team knows the magnitude of the game.

It’s hard to critique Swinney’s approach too much — Clemson’s the defending champs, after all.

But I’m not sure this approach can work much longer for Clemson — they aren’t the underdog they’re trying to make themselves out to be; they’re the kings of the college football world until they get knocked off.

Coach O, on the other hand, has done a tremendous job of keeping his team focused, despite not playing a close game since early November.

I guess we’ll see which approach pays off on Monday night.