After starting a season 1-2 for the first time since 2014, and starting 0-1 in ACC play this year, Clemson is staring at an uphill climb when it comes to winning the conference and making the College Football Playoff.

With Saturday’s 24-21 loss at Georgia Tech, Clemson’s playoff hopes are, at best, on life support. And as far as the ACC Championship and CFP are concerned, head coach Dabo Swinney knows the Tigers are in a position where they have to run the table going forward.

Following Saturday’s loss, Swinney discussed his team’s outlook for the playoff and ACC Championship, with seven ACC games remaining.

“They give you eight for a reason, but we have no room for error. We’re uphill and the wind’s at our face, that’s for sure,” Swinney said. “But hey, gotta do it the hard way, if we’re gonna do it. We ain’t going to be able to do it the easy way.

“But we’re not out. I mean, but the wind’s definitely in our face, and we are climbing uphill. But we’ve still got life, and as long as we stay together and as long as we keep competing, anything can happen. But we’ve just got to find a way to win a game.”

Despite the bad start to this season, which also includes a 17-10 loss to LSU in Week 1, Swinney is confident the Tigers are still a good team – but have struggled to put it all together in every phase of the game (offense, defense and special teams).

“It’s a long season,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go, and the good news is we’ve got a good team. That’s the other thing. We played a tough opener. We could have played East-West University, right, and it probably feels different right now.

“But we’ve got two losses down to the last freakin’ play, and we’ve had opportunities in both of those, and putting it all together has been our problem. That’s really been the frustrating thing, is really all three phases, playing complimentary football. But it all falls on me. It’s my responsibility. I’m the head coach. I’ve been here a long time and I’ve been in a lot of games. … So, you just keep playing. You just play the games.”

As for the 1-2 start, for a Clemson program that has such high standards and expectations every year — a program that came into this season season ranked No. 4 in the AP Poll, and a program that some national analysts even picked to win the national title — Swinney says, “I know the world we live in, I know the world that we’ve created at Clemson with high expectations and excellence.”

“I don’t have my head in the sand there, and I know there will be a ton of negativity and all that stuff that comes with it,” he said. “But we can’t do anything about that. We’ve just got to stay together and go play, and just see if we can win a game.

“Because you don’t have the start you want, but you can start right here and have the type of ending that you want. You still control that. So, we’ve all got some soul searching to do between now and Monday, and get back to work.”

Clemson will vie for its first ACC win next Saturday when it plays host to Syracuse at Death Valley (noon, ABC or ESPN).