During an ACC PM show on ACC Network this week, ESPN analyst Tom Luginbill spoke a lot about the Clemson football team and gave some thoughts on the Tigers’ 42-21 victory over Georgia Tech last Saturday at Death Valley.

“They looked dominant,” Luginbill said. “Like, they looked like everybody had been expecting them to perform from the word ‘go.’ Now listen, when the other team starts doing the things that you’ve been doing that have created losses, it’s going to help. So the other team in Georgia Tech has got four turnovers, you only have one. You have less penalties than they have. You have better players than they have. Well guess what… the math was math, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get to 42-21 right there.”

Luginbill has been “really impressed” by how Dabo Swinney’s team has rebounded recently.

After coming out of the bye week with consecutive losses to Miami and NC State — the first time Clemson suffered back-to-back regular season losses since 2011 — the Tigers have responded with wins over Notre Dame and Georgia Tech in the last two weeks.

“I tell ya with Clemson – they got some pride, now,” Luginbill said. “And Dabo likes to say, ‘It’s not like we haven’t been through adversity before.’ Well, not to the level of scrutiny they’ve experienced this year. Not a lot of people in that building that have experienced this. In fact, there’s none that have experienced a single-digit winning season. So, you really find out how invested your kids are and how important it is to them and how they’re going to respond and will they get off the mat. This has been really reflective of the type of kids they’ve got.”

Luginbill believes Clemson’s team accountability is a big reason why the Tigers have been able to bounce back of late after experiencing struggles over the course of the year.

“It’s interesting when you look at Clemson and look at what they are now,” Luginbill said. “I think I may have shared this with you guys when we were preparing for their opener against Duke, and we hop on the Zoom with Dabo and he’s shuffling some papers, and like, ‘Hey, what’ve you got there, Coach?’ He goes, ‘Oh, this is our accountability sheet.’ And he holds up this sheet and it’s basically some type of spreadsheet, and essentially they have certain factors, critical factors in certain tiers where everybody’s held accountable for whatever the conduct may be…

“He goes, ‘This is the most accountable team I have had here at Clemson and it’s not even close.’ And I think that’s one of the reasons why he’s been so shocked and frustrated that this team will have played the way it played at times. Because there was nothing that led into this season that would’ve led you to believe that would’ve happened. But I also think that accountability sheet is why they’re in the position that they’re in right now.”

The Tigers (6-4, 3-4 ACC) will try to keep their momentum going over the season’s final stretch, beginning with their last conference game and home finale this Saturday vs. No. 20 North Carolina (8-2, 4-2). The game is set to kick off at 3:30 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN.

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