Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney joined Mark Packer on Thursday for his weekly interview on Packer’s “Off Campus” radio show.
Packer asked Swinney how the spirit of his team has been this week at practice coming off of last Saturday’s 27-21, double-overtime loss to NC State in Raleigh that sent the Tigers (2-2, 1-1 ACC) to their second loss in the month of September.
Swinney answered the question and explained why, despite his team’s start to the 2021 season, this will be one of his favorite teams he has coached since he’s been at Clemson.
“I’m going to tell you, regardless of what happens the rest of this season, this will be one of my favorite groups,” Swinney said. “This is a great group of young men. I’m telling you, man, they’re fun to come to work with. They’re easy. I’ve had some undefeated teams that make you pull your hair out, and you just have to drive them and drive them and put your foot in their rear at practice. But this team’s not that way. This team is very self-motivated. They care. They show up every single day. They practice the right way. They’ve responded. It’s got excellent leadership. We’ve got some of the most talented young people that we’ve had come through here in our last two signing classes.”
While Swinney and the Tigers are certainly disappointed with the outcome of last week’s game, Swinney used it as a chance to teach his players things that he wouldn’t have been able to had they left Raleigh with a win.
“The good news is, as I said, we’ve got a bunch of great people involved,” Swinney said. “A lot of hurt. We’ve put a lot into this, man. There’s a lot of investment on everybody’s part. So, when you don’t get the result, it definitely hurts for sure. Nobody hurts like these players and this staff, but you go back to work.
“This has been a great opportunity this week for us to really teach these guys. As I said earlier this week, there’s certain lessons you can teach and learn when you lose that you just can’t teach when you win. So, it’s been a while since we’ve had a moment like this to really teach these kids how to respond, how to push through adversity, how to grow from it, how to handle criticism, all these type of things that come with it.”
Swinney pointed to the 2009 season, his first full season as Clemson’s head coach, as an example of a year when the Tigers started slow before bouncing back to finish strong – something he hopes will be the case again in 2021.
“There’s always purpose in the pain, and this is an opportunity for us to respond, and we’ve always responded,” Swinney said. “Again, in ’09, my first year, we started 2-3 and the world was over, but we ended up playing for the ACC Championship in the championship game that year. We’ve got a long season ahead. They don’t cancel the season in September. Our goal is still the same – that’s to be the best we can be. So, hopefully we can get this thing turned around and just keep growing, keep working our tails off in practice and meetings and growing these guys up.”
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