By Will Vandervort

CLEMSON — Sometimes when a coach needs to make a point to his team, he just turns on the film.

That film can be a lot of things. It could be of a mistake that cost his team the game. It can be a mental breakdown that led to a touchdown. But sometimes, it can be just to show his team what can happen when you don’t take your opponent serious enough or maybe you might be looking ahead.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney just has to throw in last year’s game against NC State in the DVD player to get all of those points across.

The ninth-ranked Tigers, who will host NC State this Saturday to close out the ACC part of its schedule, literally did all of the above in a 37-13 loss in Raleigh last year. They turned the football over four times. They had breakdowns in special teams and they gave up six sacks.

“I think we were up 3-0 right there at the start of the second quarter, and then all of sudden with about 2:50 left in the first half we were down 24-3,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said Tuesday.

The Wolfpack (6-4, 3-3 ACC) added a field goal after that to take a 27-3 lead at the break. Clemson ultimately got another field goal and then a late touchdown to make the score look closer than it actually was.

“There was no secret to what happened,” Clemson center Dalton Freeman said. “There wasn’t really anything that NC State did, now you give them credit for taking advantage of our mistakes, but it was all what we did.

“We turned the ball over three times inside the 25-yard line. You are going to struggle against a junior varsity team when you do that. For us, it is controlling what we can control. We execute what we are supposed to do then we will be fine.”

Freeman says the Tigers (9-1, 6-1) have seen last year’s NC State game more than once in the last few days as the coaches have reminded the players what happens in a game when they are not focused on what they are supposed to do.

Though some might say Clemson was short-handed on that trip to Raleigh last year with Sammy Watkins out as well as left tackle Philip Price, who was out with a knee injury, the Tigers are not using that as an excuse.

To them, it was a game that they did not play well and NC State made them pay for it.

“It went back to field position for us,” Swinney said. “We were playing on a 100-yard field and they played on a 30-yard field. They had possessions on like the 49, 39, 18, 9 and 3 or something like that. Then the momentum and the energy were all on their sideline. That’s what happens in a football game from time-to-time.

“We did a really poor job and we did not have them ready to play. It’s as simple as that.”