Dabo Swinney says he’s experienced plenty of painful locker rooms following various games over the years.

However, few have been as painful as the one after Clemson’s 34-21 loss to Syracuse on Saturday at Death Valley, according to the Tigers’ longtime head coach.

Clemson, which began the season ranked No. 4 in the AP Poll and had preseason national championship aspirations, fell to 1-3 this season and 0-2 in ACC play.

“Obviously an incredibly disappointing outcome and start to our season,” Swinney said during his postgame press conference Saturday. “There’s just no other way to say it. I mean, just a lot of pain. I’ve been in a lot of painful locker rooms. That was up there near the top. My heart just hurts for our team and our fans. I thought our fans showed up today, did a great job, and we just didn’t get it done.”

This marks the first time the Tigers have started a season 1-3 since 2004, and thus it is also their worst start in the Dabo Swinney era.

At 0-2 in the ACC, this is Clemson’s worse start in conference play since 2010, when the Tigers lost to Miami and North Carolina to start ACC play.

“It’s incredibly disappointing, and it’s my responsibility for us to be better,” Swinney said. “This is not the start to our season that any of us envisioned. Not what we worked for. I just hurt for the guys.”

For the fourth straight week, Clemson got off to a slow start. This time the Tigers fell behind 10-0, as the defense gave up an opening drive touchdown. The Orange then surprised Clemson with an onside kick, which they recovered at their own 46. The onside kick led to a 23-yard Tripp Woody field goal.

Clemson has allowed every opponent this season to score before it scored, and the Tigers have continually failed to play complementary football.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” Swinney said. “We just can’t seem to get on the same page and play complimentary football. We can’t seem to get it all together. We kind of work against each other.”

“That’s the biggest disappointment is the slow start, the lack of complimentary football when we need to work with each other,” Swinney added.

Swinney appreciates “how hard those kids fought till the last play” against Syracuse, but going forward this season, he knows the Tigers have to be realistic about the goals they can accomplish.

“I am thankful, and I do hope that y’all notice how hard those kids fought till the last play, and there’s a lot to be said for that,” Swinney said. “They love Clemson and they love each other, and that’s what’ll get us through this.

“So, the open date’s coming at a good time. We’re beat up emotionally and physically. But we’ll rally and we’ll get back to work. There’s certainly no quit in me, and I didn’t see any quit in our team or our staff down the stretch. So, we’ll get back to work, and again, we’ll have to reset our goals on what we still can do. We can’t sit around and dwell on missed opportunity. We’ve got to lock in on what we can do, and that’s what I’ll do, that’s what our team will do, and see if we can win a game and battle back.”

Clemson has an open date next weekend before returning to action against North Carolina in Chapel Hill on Saturday, Oct. 4 – the first of eight games left on the regular season schedule.

“Still a long season ahead,” Swinney said. “It’ll be basically an eight-game season for us at this point, and we just gotta fight our tails off to find a way to win a game and create some momentum. We really haven’t had any momentum to this point.”