Clemson Football: 5 reasons to be optimistic about 2019

SANTA CLARA, CA - JANUARY 07: Kendall Joseph #34 of the Clemson Tigers celebrates his teams 44-16 win over the Alabama Crimson Tidewith the trophy in the CFP National Championship presented by AT&T at Levi's Stadium on January 7, 2019 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
SANTA CLARA, CA - JANUARY 07: Kendall Joseph #34 of the Clemson Tigers celebrates his teams 44-16 win over the Alabama Crimson Tidewith the trophy in the CFP National Championship presented by AT&T at Levi's Stadium on January 7, 2019 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
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Clemson football will be coming off a national championship to kick off the year. Does the 2019 season promise to be just as exciting?

Clemson became the first team in 121 years to go 15-0, securing the National Championship title with a blow out win of Alabama. Many were shocked at what Clemson did to Alabama, but the Tiger faithful weren’t at all surprised as they knew exactly what their team was capable of.

However, the question of 2019 remains: what reasons do Clemson fans have to be optimistic about the coming season?

5. Momentum from a national championship is real

What Clemson did to Alabama was unprecedented and shocking to the world. The 44-16 win showed dominance all around by a strong Tiger defensive front and an even stronger performance by true freshman Trevor Lawrence and his young running back Travis Etienne. We will discuss both of them later. The point of this section is one thing, how much does the momentum of winning a title in the way that Clemson did carry over into the next season?

The answer? A lot. The Tigers only made it to the Playoff Semifinal a season ago, facing off against Alabama and falling in disappointing, heartbreaking fashion. They took that momentum and went 15-0 in 2018 including the National Championship. That is a win to build from. That is a win to gain big time momentum from. That is a win to shape a program around.

Yes, Deshaun Watson’s last-second victory for the title was pretty cool. However, this was a beating to end all beatings. This was a show of Clemson simply being the better team and they can build off that to once again be the better team in 2019.