Dabo Swinney didn’t sugarcoat it after Clemson football’s latest setback… The Tigers have to be better, but Swinney isn’t panicking yet.
A 55-yard field goal as time expired handed Georgia Tech a 24-21 win on Saturday, dropping Clemson to 1-2 for the first time since 2014. It’s a start few expected for a program that has spent the past decade as one of the sport’s standard-bearers. During that stretch, Swinney guided Clemson to two national championships and seven College Football Playoff appearances. But in the past five seasons, the Tigers have advanced to the playoff just once, and last year’s trip ended quickly with a first-round loss in Texas.
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“We’ve had a lot of adversity over the years, many, many times,” Swinney said. “But we’ve always hung in there, gone about our business, and that’s what we’ll do here. We all got to be better. We are just a little bit short.”
This season’s issues have been easy to spot. Cade Klubnik has already committed four turnovers after totaling just six interceptions a year ago, with two of those mistakes coming inside Georgia Tech’s 10-yard line. The defense has made progress since last fall but continues to give up long drives, allowing opponents to convert nearly 45 percent of their third-down chances. Swinney acknowledged the two sides of the ball haven’t meshed.
Even so, he has tried to keep perspective. Clemson’s two defeats have both been one-score games against ranked opponents. “I got to get them confident they can make that one play,” Swinney said. “That is literally what it is.”
The frustrations aren’t limited to fans. Former Tiger Shaq Lawson publicly questioned the team’s toughness after the loss, but Swinney brushed it off as part of the job. “Criticism’s part of it,” he said. “When you’re at Clemson and you don’t get the results that we all work for, that’s just part of it.”
Swinney reminded his team of the last time it faced this situation. In 2014, the Tigers opened 1-2 before finishing the season with 10 wins. He’s counting on a similar response as Syracuse and new head coach Fran Brown head to Death Valley this week.
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“We rallied then, and we’ll rally again,” Swinney said. “We got nine more games to show what we’re made of.”
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This article originally appeared on Clemson Wire: Clemson HC Dabo Swinney isn’t panicking over the Tigers’ slow start
