Clemson RB Kobe Pace Not Worried About Outside Criticism

The outside noise doesn’t negatively affect Kobe Pace.

While Clemson’s offense might have taken a ton of heat for its lack of production last season, the junior running back said that all of the criticism helped the Tigers grow on that side of the ball and has only helped motivate this year’s team.

“For sure. I’d say we grew,” Pace said. “I mean, it’s just all the criticism that we got, I feel like everyone was tired of it. So, I feel like we picked up our slack and just (dealt) with all the criticism that we got from each other. So, hearing all the outsiders saying that we can’t put up points, I mean, I know what we can do as an offense and I believe in them.”

While there have been many questioning what this Clemson team might look like on the offensive side of the ball after an inconsistent 2021 season, Pace tunes all of that out.

“Nah, I ain’t worried about it,” he said. “People are going to talk, it’s life. People talk good or bad about you no matter what. So, TV or social media doesn’t have nothing to do with anything. I really don’t even watch SportsCenter or anything, all the talk shows. I just watch games and stuff.”

Injuries played a big part in Clemson’s lack of consistency on the offensive side of the ball, and Pace thinks some of the criticism might have been a little overblown, noting that the Tigers were able to win six straight after the 4-3 start.

“I felt like that people sometimes didn’t believe in us just because of we couldn’t put points on the board,” Pace said. “But to me, we still had a great season. No one goes 4-3 and comes back and win 10 games. I mean, I think that’s a good team right there. We had to put points up somehow to be 10-3. You can’t win with 0 points. So, I think we just stayed focused and just stayed the course and got it done.”