CLEMSON — Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney learned one valuable lesson on his trip to Austin, Texas earlier this week – there is no place like home.

“I’ll tell you if did not get anything else out of that trip, I got one thing, there is no better place than Clemson University,” he said Thursday while previewing spring practice which starts on Monday. “This is a special place. We have everything we need to be successful at Clemson.”

But there is one thing the Texas Longhorns have that Clemson apparently does not. The Longhorns believe they can win regardless of the odds. And Swinney says that just isn’t the attitude of their players and coaches either, that’s the attitude of their fans as well.

“The only difference to me in Texas and Clemson is right there (pointing to an orange wood block sign that read ‘Believe’). It is that mentality we are trying to get to and believing that you can do something great and that your hard work is paying off and that you keep getting up believing.”

Swinney says that is what Clemson has to start doing in order to get that monkey off its back when it comes to winning a championship of any kind. Clemson last won a national championship in 1981, and though it leads the ACC with the most conference titles, it has not won the conference since 1991.

“There are a lot of people that have doubt and this and that. We have to believe,” he said. “It starts on the inside and it works its way out. That starts with me and the coaches, the managers, the trainers, the equipment people, the secretaries and the players.

“If we take care of that then hopefully everyone else will believe like we need them to.”

In talking with Texas head coach Mack Brown during a three-day visit in which he picked the national championship coach’s brain and watched practice, Swinney learned that Brown faced some of the same problems when he first came to Texas in 1998.

At that time, the Longhorns had not won a national championship in 35 years and had the reputation of being a very inconsistent team. But under Brown, who also turned around a struggling North Carolina program before he departed to Texas, the Longhorns have won more games than anyone in the country the last 10 seasons, won the national championship in 2005 and has played for and won the Big 12 title several times as well.

“This is Texas. There are 10 million people in the state of Texas,” Swinney said. “They had not won a national championship since 1970, but they won it in ’05. That’s 35 years they wandered around in the desert out there in Texas. Thirty-five years.

“It’s what? Eighteen years since we won this conference and 28 years since we won the national championship here? Well, it is time to get back to believing that you can do great things again. It is not easy to do and it wasn’t for Coach Brown.”

Swinney said the trip also taught himself a lot about his coaching style.

“The thing I like about them is that they are simpler than we are,” he said. “They’re not offensive plays, but they are offensive players and I like that. I think we got a lot out of it.

“We really wanted to study some protection things that they were doing and then certain personnel that we play out of that they use and it kind of gave us some different philosophies. It was a great, great trip for us from that regard… The biggest thing you learn is that you are doing some things better, but you also learn a new way to teach something. If you ever stop learning in this profession, you are done.”