CLEMSON — After watching his team suffer another heartbreaking loss, Dabo Swinney knew he needed to do something to get his Clemson team back on track.
The Tigers had just lost to NC State, a game in which they dominated the Wolfpack in every way, but one, the final score. Turnovers, penalties, missed tackles, all of these things were to blame on why No. 24 Clemson was 4-4 and 2-4 in the ACC after Week 9.
“Coach Swinney came to us that Monday meeting before Notre Dame and kind of put everybody on notice. ‘We got to show people we are Clemson again,’” safety Khalil Barnes recalled.
And they did.
The Tigers (8-4) rolled off one of the best turnarounds in the program’s history, winning their final four regular season games by playing smash-mouth-football and leaning on a defense that has been relentless all season.
Clemson did not go 4-0 in the month by playing the Sisters of the Poor either.
They beat a Notre Dame team that was ranked 12th in the country at the time. They embarrassed a Georgia Tech squad that had won three out of four games and was playing with a lot of confidence.
The Tigers then knocked off No. 22 North Carolina who was playing for a possible New Year’s Six Bowl game and last week beat rival South Carolina on the road to snap the Gamecocks’ three-game win streak.
“We established our identity,” Barnes said. “We wanted to be villains. We wanted opposing crowds to hate us.”
Clemson looked like Clemson again. It dominated its opponents and forced its will upon them.
The Tigers’ win over South Carolina was a perfect example of how they played in the last four games. Clemson ran for 219 yards and held the Gamecocks to 57.
South Carolina—just like Notre Dame, Georgia Tech and UNC—could not throw the football, either. Quarterback Spencer Rattler—one of the SEC’s top passers—had just 112 yards and completed just 16 of 32 passes. He led the SEC with a 70.6 completion percentage prior to playing the Tigers.
“You got to do what it takes to win. You have to earn it,” Swinney said. “We competed our butts off. It was just disappointing we did not win some of those other games.”
The Tigers lost to Duke in the season-opener by fumbling the ball three times inside the 10, including twice at the one-yard line. They then lost in overtime to No. 5 Florida State and in double overtime to Miami. They rallied from 24-7 down at NC State and had a chance to tie the game before falling short.
In those heartbreaking losses, they had critical turnovers, like a scoop score that allowed FSU to force overtime. A lost fumble at the goal line against Miami proved costly, as did a pick-six at NC State.
“We just had a lot of critical mistakes,” Swinney said.
After Swinney put everybody on notice—coaches and players—the script flipped.
“We just played better. We’ve played our best football,” he said. “We won the turnover margin in every game. That’s four in a row and we have won four games. If you go back and look at the common denominator in our losses, and it is not just turnovers, it was the type of turnovers. It was where they were. It was going into score. It was pick-sixes. It was scoop and score. It was crazy stuff.
“But that is football. All you can do is respond.”
That is what the Tigers did. They responded with a 31-23 victory over Notre Dame. They responded with a 42-21 win over Georgia Tech. They responded with a 31-20 victory over UNC, and they responded with a 16-7 win at South Carolina.
“Football is like life. It is exactly like life. That’s why it is such a great teacher,” Swinney said. “When you have 18 to 23-year-old young people that work really hard, everybody, we work hard to get a result. When it does not go your way, especially in today’s world with all the noise and distractions, you can lose your focus. You can splinter. You can point fingers. You can do whatever.
“It is really inspiring to see a group of young people stay together, but not only stay together but grow stronger. Just keep going. Just keep getting up. Again, it’s not what happened, it is how you respond.”
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