Orange Bowl shootout? Clemson's Dabo Swinney not expecting '6-3 game' vs Tennessee

Tennessee football leads the nation in scoring and Clemson ranks 25th.

So that translates to a shootout when the teams collide in the upcoming Orange Bowl, right?

“I don’t think it’ll be a 6-3 game,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said Wednesday during the Orange Bowl Kickoff press conference in Miami. “If you’re playing Tennessee, you’d better score, that’s all I know.”

The Volunteers finished the regular season as the highest-scoring team with an average of 47.3 points per game. They also ranked No. 1 in total offense, producing 538.1 yards per game, which only adds to the challenge when No. 7 Clemson (11-2) and No. 6 Tennessee (10-2) play on Dec. 30 (8 p.m., ESPN).

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Clemson averaged 34.7 points per game, but Swinney is not sure that will get the job done against the Volunteers.

“If we don’t score, we’ve got no chance because these guys not only score a lot of points, they score really fast,” Swinney said. “It’s unbelievable, really.

“I haven’t had a chance to dive deeply into them, but I’ve watched them all year long and I mean it’s incredible. They do an amazing job and they’ve scored on everybody. All I know is 35 is probably not enough for the Tigers; we’d better find a way to score some points.”

Tennessee coach Josh Heupel then tempered Swinney’s concern, citing the Tigers’ top 10 defense.

“Every game takes on its own identity and Clemson is one of the top defenses in the country,” Heupel said. “You get to bowl season and every game unfolds differently.”

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Dabo Swinney on Clemson-Tennessee football offenses in Orange Bowl