CLEMSON — The one thing Dabo Swinney has been fighting for his team to do, is to play together.

It seems, except for the North Carolina and Boston College games, the offense and defense do not always play together. Case in point, last week’s loss to SMU.

The Tigers are coming off a 35-24 loss to SMU at home, marking the program’s fifth straight home loss to a Power Conference opponent. It is the first time the program has suffered a streak this long since the 1970 and 1971 seasons.

In the game, the defense kept the Tigers close, but the offense struggled to score just seven points on its first nine possessions. In the second half, the offense got rolling and brought Clemson back.

However, the defense could not get a stop, as the Mustangs scored following all four of the Tigers’ scores.

“The bottom line is we did not earn the right to win, and SMU did,” Swinney said. “We did not play complimentary football like we did the last couple of games. Defensively, we stopped them, and then we did not score. Then offensively, we would score and the defense could not stop them.

“We just could not really put it together. They out-executed us and out-coached us on some critical plays and we did a poor job in some of those areas.”

The Tigers (3-4, 2-3 ACC) will hope to fix that next week against Duke. It will be needed because the Blue Devils have one of the best quarterbacks in the ACC, as well as a defense that can cause havoc for the opposing offense.

Duke quarterback Darin Mensah leads the league in passing (2,211 yards) at 315.9 yards per game. He also leads the league with 17 touchdown passes to just two interceptions.

On the defensive side, the Blue Devils (4-3, 3-1 ACC) have eight interceptions and have allowed just six TD throws. They also rank second in tackles for loss (8.14 pg) and fourth in sacks (17).

The Tigers know they cannot have the same kind of performance against Duke that they had against SMU.

“We just didn’t make the routine plays. Communication was a really big thing for us,” cornerback Ashton Hampton said. “At the time, we just didn’t make big plays when we needed to. That really ended up hurting us.”

Hampton indicated their inability to stop the Mustangs in the second half hurt.

“We know that the offense is going to have our back. Whether we go out and stop them or give up a touchdown, I have confidence in the offense that they’re going to make a play for us,” Hampton said. “At the end of the day, you can’t dwell on something that’s happened in the past.  You just got to put your head down and keep moving forward.”