CLEMSON -- Clemson's first big statement of authority this season came in Tuscaloosa on Nov. 28.
You could argue the Tigers took Alabama's crowd out of the game by taking a lead into halftime and then taking control in the second half on the way to an 85-77 victory.
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But you could also argue the Crimson Tide's home crowd was never really there to begin with. Even the ESPN analyst, Jay Williams, called out the lethargy of Coleman Coliseum during the broadcast.
Saturday's trip to Memphis feels like a whole different deal for a Clemson team that has been almost startlingly good thus far over a 9-0 start.
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That much is evident in the campaign by the Tigers in blue to make FedEx Forum as inhospitable as possible for the Tigers in orange.
Penny Hardaway taped a video message urging fans to wear white and pack the place for "a huge game with the 13th ranked team in the country coming into our building."
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Brad Brownell fully grasped the magnitude of the challenge when we visited with him earlier this week. His players were just getting back into the routine after some time off for rest and final exams, but Brownell knew this environment would be far more difficult than what Clemson overcame at Alabama and at Pittsburgh.
Like Clemson, Memphis has challenged itself with a rigorous November and December schedule. Hardaway's team has beaten Michigan, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas A&M away from its home confines while losing to Villanova and Ole Miss.
A day after Clemson's second-half flexing against TCU enabled a 74-66 victory in Toronto, Hardaway's team went to College Station and jumped all over the Aggies in the first half before holding on to win 81-75 to improve to 7-2.
Three days after this 3 PM game, Virginia visits FedEx Forum.
"They're a high-major program," Brownell said. "I mean it'll be an electric atmosphere. I've never been there, but I've heard it'll be unbelievable. They just have a really good program. They're playing really well, and they've had good teams back-to-back-to-back. It'll be a real challenge for our team."
The beauty of Clemson's best start since the Oliver Purnell era (16-0 in 2008-09) is that this is not your customary pre-conference romp through cream puffs with an occasional high-profile opponent.
No, Brownell and Co. simply weren't going to leave anything to chance after the devastation of an NCAA Tournament snub last March. Pre-conference losses to teams that happened to be not good -- South Carolina and Loyola-Chicago -- damaged their stock. Non-conference games against The Citadel, USC Upstate, Bellarmine, Loyola-Maryland and Towson didn't help either.
They scheduled big in 2022-24 and it coincides with the best team Brownell has had. The Tigers will go into ACC play with some serious bona fides having already been achieved, what with their national ranking and top spot in the RPI.
But therein rests part of the challenge, right? The target is bigger now, evidenced in the aforementioned rallying cry from Hardaway and the environment Clemson will confront Saturday.
Don't misunderstand: We're not saying all that white and all that noise should intimidate the team or you. Nor are we saying the receptions that will greet Clemson in ACC play are something to fear.
Yet this is in fact new air Clemson is breathing. And here at a football school, maybe it's appropriate to equate it to one of the lessons Dabo Swinney has imparted frequently over the last decade-plus as he took his program to more exalted heights.
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"We get everyone's best shot," is what he often says when he takes the Tigers into a hostile road game.
And that's really the trick. The better you become, the harder it is because more teams circle their calendar for your visits.
No, we're not saying Clemson basketball has reached the perennial powerhouse status that Swinney constructed. Of course not.
But this new profile -- this higher ground and status that has been comprehensively earned to date -- confers not just accolades but some baggage, too.
This is a group of marked men now.
We'll see plenty of evidence of that early next month when full-scale ACC play begins with a trip to Miami, followed by a visit from North Carolina three days later.
And we'll see it Saturday.
It's a whole new world of higher stature, greater stakes and more attention from the opposition.
And you get the feeling that this group of hard-edged competitors loves every bit of it.
Which means they're probably well-suited for what's coming.
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