Did it appear as if Clemson had a lack of interest in Saturday’s 37-27 victory over Syracuse?

There is a good argument for it.

The Tigers did not play their best at Syracuse. Though the offense scored 37 points and racked up 566 yards of total offense, it was not crisp. It turned the ball over three times and was penalized several times for procedures, delay of game and holding.

The defense played its worst game by far. Granted, they allowed a respectable 27 points and yielded just 322 total yards, but for really the first time all year they were getting whipped at the line of scrimmage. The Orange did more than just run for 242 yards on Clemson’s vaunted defense … they averaged 7.1 yards per carry in doing it.

Was top-ranked Clemson’s mind in the game? Were the Tigers prepared? Or was it a letdown after getting such an emotional over Florida State the week before.

“No. No letdown at all. We won by double digits on the road,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said on Sunday.

If it wasn’t a letdown then what was it?

“Just because they made some plays does not mean we had a letdown,” Swinney said. “That’s what I hate about that. People do not want to give the opponent any credit. ‘Well, they made plays just because Clemson was not…’ No, they made some plays.”

One of those plays was a third-and-11 call from their own 2. Quarterback Zack Mahoney, under heavy pressure from Clemson’s Shaq Lawson, completed a 28-yard pass to wide receiver Steve Ishmael to key a 97-yard scoring drive in the third quarter.

“Shaq Lawson absolutely destroyed that quarterback, but that kid hung in there and threw it up and their guy made a great play. That’s football,” Swinney said. “They made a big play on the fake punt thing and kind of kept that alive to get a field goal.

“Those kids fought for everything they got, and they earned it. They outcoached us a little bit with some schematic things and then they blocked us some, too. That doesn’t mean it was a letdown. What’s a letdown?”

A letdown is when an inferior opponent, especially one who is a 30-point underdog at home, wins or has a chance to win a game they should not.

“All I know is we only have to have one more point than the opponent to win the game,” Swinney said. “If we can beat Wake Forest by one point and South Carolina by one point and whoever it is in the (ACC) Championship Game by one point, we will be in the College Football Playoff. If we win that by one point and we get to the national championship and we win that by one point, guess what? We will be the national champs.

“Shoot, did we play perfect? No. But we played a good game. Overcame some critical mistakes that created some momentum problems for us, and we overcame some big plays by them, but there was a lot of good as well.”

The line for this week’s final home game against Wake Forest opened at 30.5 points for the nation’s top-ranked team. So if the Tigers do not win by 31 points, does it mean they had another letdown?

“Look, there is no question we have to get better,” Swinney said. “We have to have a great week of practice. We have to go see if we can play a little bit better game this week and come out of this game feeling like we were more complete in all three phases like we want to.

“The objective is to win, and we more than accomplished that.”