Saturday was a rough night for Clemson and Dabo Swinney was the first to acknowledge that. The Tigers’ head coach spoke with former Clemson Sports Information Director Tim Bourret on the Fifth Quarter Show following the 35-14 loss to Notre Dame and detailed just what went wrong for the Tigers in South Bend.
“Defensively we could not stop the run, just as simple as that,” Swinney said. “Couldn’t stop the run and when we did stop the run, the time of possession was just unbelievable. We had them pinned down on the 5 a couple of times and next thing you know, we’re getting the ball on the 5, you know, long drives and just really a poor job with that and had a lot of bad field position because of it when we did stop them.
“Again, just the better coached team. This is as disappointing a game that I’ve been a part of in my 14 years as a head coach, there’s no question about that. This was not our night and it’s nobody’s responsibility but mine.”
Notre Dame’s run game was indeed destructive against a Clemson defense that just couldn’t get it together. The Fighting Irish ran the ball 47 times for 263 yards and two touchdowns, running all over Wes Goodwin and his defensive personnel.
For head coach Dabo Swinney, his team’s struggles came down to a mixture of silly mistakes and a lack of momentum that was a recipe for disaster against a team that seemed to have all the momentum in the world.
“There’s no question about it. Just really disappointed in everything,” Swinney said. “You got to give Notre Dame all the credit in the world. They absolutely dominated every statistic, and we got what we earned, simple as that. Momentum is a powerful thing in games like this and just really disappointed in the punt. Very simple play, we just didn’t do our job and we never got the momentum back from that, which is disappointing. They got a score off of that and then they got the pick-six and then we had another bad interception where they got the ball on the 10 or whatever, got another score off of that.”
“You’re not going to beat a good team on the road like that with those type of mistakes,” he continued. “Bottom line, they were the more physical team, they were the more disciplined team, they were the better coached team, period. It’s just as simple as that.”
Despite the heartbreaking loss, Swinney knows it’s not the end of the road for his Tigers. With an ACC Championship berth on the horizon and three more matchups in Death Valley on deck, Clemson has the opportunity to put the Notre Dame loss behind them, turn the page and trend back into the win column — a response Swinney is hopeful for.
“I wish we were 9-0 and our intention was to be 9-0, but we didn’t deserve that tonight,” he said. “Gotta get back to work and there’s still a lot out there for our team just like there is for other teams out there that have one loss. We got a chance to win our division, we got a chance to win the state championship, we got a chance to win this league and if we can do those things then we’ll have an opportunity for a great postseason opportunity.”
