CLEMSON — Clemson linebacker Barrett Carter spoke to the media to talk about Dabo Swinney standing up for the program, playing hard for his team and much more.

Clemson will host No. 12 Notre Dame Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

–Notre Dame handed Clemson its first loss last year and the junior linebacker was asked about what went wrong. “Honestly, we didn’t show up like we should have, I wouldn’t even say that it was something that they did, but we just didn’t show up like we should have and we realized that after the game.”

–Swinney is the first to go to battle for the Tigers. Carter appreciates his head coach for standing up for the team, but he doesn’t want him to have to “ever do that again. I think it’s great that Coach Swinney does that but at the same time it also lights a fire inside of me and want to go harder for the guys and just make sure that we don’t have our coach step in and say here’s this and here’s that.”

–Although this season isn’t going as planned for Clemson, Carter said the losses are just lessons learned because at the end of the day, record doesn’t matter. “When you look at our record and we are 4-4 and it’s disappointing, but once you step on the field against another opponent, no one cares about the record. We can’t sit around and feel sorry for ourselves because Notre Dame dang sure doesn’t care what our record is, they were 5-3 last year and whooped our tails.”

–With a 10-win season out of reach for the Tigers this season, Carter still believes there is a lot to play for. When asked what is left to play for, the junior responded with, “Each other…I love this school, I love this team, I love the coaches, I love everything about Clemson and I have no choice but to lay everything on the line each day for this university, that is what I am going to continue to do until the day I leave here.

Clemson and Notre Dame will kick off at noon. The game will be aired on ABC.

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