By Will Vandervort / Photo Elsa Shafer (twitter).

There used to be a time when something went wrong during a game Scott Shafer could pick up a chair and throw it, or maybe say a swear word or two. No one was there to see him do it with the exception of another assistant coach that was sitting in the press box with him.

No harm no foul, right?

But that’s when Syracuse’s head coach was an assistant coach. As the head coach, he can’t get away with those outbursts, especially when half the country is watching you on ESPN every Saturday afternoon in the fall.

Shafer learned this lesson the hard way when ESPN cameras caught the 47-year old coach throwing a temper tantrum just before halftime in last year’s 49-14 loss to Clemson.

“I was in the press box for 23 years so when something went wrong, I could duck and hide and throw a chair and get away with it,” Shafer said earlier this week at the 2014 ACC Football Kickoff in Greensboro, N.C. “And now I’m a head coach, and everything is right out there.”

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney just laughs when he describes it these days. So what exactly happened in case you weren’t in the Carrier Dome last October 5?

With the Tigers up, 35-7, Swinney called a timeout with 14 seconds remaining in the half. Clemson had a fourth-and-goal from the Syracuse five-yard line. Most people thought Clemson was going to kick a field goal and go into the locker room with a 31-point lead, but Swinney wanted to erase any hope Syracuse might think it had. He went for the juggler and elected to go for it.

When Shafer saw that Swinney trotted quarterback Tajh Boyd and company back on the field, the Syracuse coach lost it. ESPN’s television cameras caught him calling Swinney names two dirty to repeat. Though everyone at home—including Shafer’s daughter—and in the press box saw what he did, Swinney was clueless to all of it and was in complete surprise when Clemson Assistant Athletic Director for Football Tim Bourret told him about the problem after the game.

“I’m like, ‘We just won the game, what’s the problem,’” Swinney recalled. “He told me what happened, so I addressed the team and I go in our locker room and Coach Shafer is in the coaches’ locker room. Just he and I are in there and my son (Will) was in there, too. He was so remorseful and just apologized.

“I said, ‘What did you say?’ He went right back through it verbatim. My son was over there stunned because he has not heard those words, really, but I was like, ‘Wow, you were really mad.’”

These days Shafer isn’t mad and he understands Swinney was not trying to run the score up, but was instead trying to put the game away.

“I’ve always been a sore loser, and I hate to lose,” Shafer said. “I can’t stand it. I’ve learned my lesson well. I need to control those emotions in those situations.”

Shafer to this day still feels bad about the whole situation and so does his wife, Missy.

“Kathleen and I, we were going for a walk, and we were coming out and here comes this car. The next thing you know the car stops and the window rolls down and it’s Mrs. Shafer,” Swinney said smiling as he recalled their conversation from the ACC’s Spring Meetings. “She’s like, ‘We need to take a picture with y’all.’ Their daughter was mad at him and they wanted to prove that we really like each other, so we took a picture and had some fun.”

Swinney’s right, they are having fun these days. Shafer has learned a valuable lesson as a head coach and Swinney has a new friend.

“It was a very passionate moment, but we’ve actually had a lot of fun in discussing that, and I think he did a great job last year,” Swinney said.