CLEMSON — With the fall semester starting on Wednesday, and the Florida State game less than two weeks away, the Clemson football team is now starting to get away from their conditioning work as their attention turns towards the elder Bowden and his Seminoles.

Head coach Tommy Bowden is now setting aside time with his coaches for game-planning sessions, and is confident that his team is practicing with the intensity they’ll have to show on Labor Day night if they want to win on national television.

“I’d like to think we’ve been intense everyday we’ve come out,” Bowden said following practice on Monday. “I hope it’s at a pretty high level already.”

However, the team will now be scaling back their practice time with the start of classes right around the corner. Following a scrimmage this morning, the team will take Wednesday off so the players can get acclimated to their class schedules.

“Wednesday will be game planning with the staff,” Bowden said. “It’s the first day of school, so in our goal to stress academics as the highest priority, we will not practice.”

That day off comes on the heels of a practice-free Sunday. The Tigers attended Newspring Church in Anderson as a team, something they do every year, and watched film of the scrimmage on Saturday following services.

Also with the start of school, the Tigers will scale back to only one practice a day, which could seemingly affect the Tigers’ focus. However Bowden said he expects his team will begin reading more about the game, which will keep them plenty focused when they aren’t out on the practice field. He also said his players will have to deal with the normal distractions that come along with the rest of the students back in town, but overall he’s not concerned.

Tigers beginning to heal. Clemson welcomed back a number of players to practice on Monday that had missed practice over the last week, as Jamie Cumbie, Ricky Sapp, Dorell Scott, Antwon Murchison and Josh Miller were all back in action.

As the Tigers prepare to scrimmage again tomorrow, Bowden is worried about his teams’ conditioning, but will work his team hard.

“We’ll go out there and scrimmage tomorrow and hopefully we won’t get anybody hurt,” Bowden said. “It’ll be a full-scale scrimmage with hitting and everything.”

Freshmen impress. Following practice on Monday, Bowden praised a pair of freshmen in tight end/fullback Chad Diehl and offensive tackle David Smith.

Diehl appears likely to play this season, rather than red-shirt, which Bowden is using as a challenge to some of his more experienced players.

“Right now he probably contends as one of our better blocking tight ends, so he’s probably going to get some work instead of some of the other guys that have been out there,” Bowden said. “I won’t name their names. They’ll know who they are.”

Smith has benefited from Landon Walker’s knee injury, which required arthroscopic surgery, and may now challenge for time on the field.

“We did find out that about David in the scrimmage on Saturday,” Bowden said. “He’s pretty far along for a guy who wasn’t here in the spring. With Landon being out, he now has as many practices as Landon.”

Taylor in the backfield. Junior wide receiver Rendrick Taylor, who has been plagued by injury in his two years with program, has been seeing some work in the backfield in recent days.

Taylor was expected to play out of the J-Back position a year ago, which was specifically designed for him. It was expected that he could use his large frame to help block in the running game, while also rolling out into the flats as a receiver.

Another facet to the position would be the occasional carry, which now seems less likely than last season given the success of running backs C.J. Spiller and James Davis.

However, he received some carries in practice, but Bowden quickly downplayed what effect he’ll have as a rusher.

“He could carry it, but so could 30 other guys,” Bowden joked.