CLEMSON — When Clemson lost to top-ranked Miami on Oct. 3, no one really panicked.

All of the Tigers’ goals were still in front of them. Sure, the loss hurt, but Clemson showed a lot of fight, plus they had two solid weeks to get things fixed before hosting Virginia Tech.

After the Miami game, the Tigers had an open date, where head coach Dabo Swinney said the team went back to the drawing board, self-scout themselves and cleaned up the mistakes they were making.

Clemson then got to see how well they cleaned those things up in what was a glorified exhibition game against FCS foe Charleston Southern last week. There were things in the Tigers’ victory last week that Swinney did not like, but they had some time to clean those things up, or so they thought.

Instead, especially on offense, Clemson struggled, which kept the Hokies around long enough to beat the Tigers in the last minute 20-16 Saturday night at Memorial Stadium.

“It’s disturbing that we didn’t do some of the routine stuff, like I know we can do, like I’ve seen in practice,” Swinney said. “It’s frustrating because I didn’t think we helped them enough as coaches, but these guys have done the work. They practice hard.”

However, practice is not transferring to game days. The Clemson offense managed just 288 total yards against the Hokies. The quarterback was sacked four times and the team gave up 13 tackles behind the line of scrimmage.

The first half was the worst part. The Tigers managed just three points and 94 yards in the first 30 minutes.

Freshman quarterback Tait Reynolds struggled in the read game, missing opportunities for big plays in the ground game and in the passing game.

Swinney put most of the blame on himself and his coaching staff and vowed to get it fixed.

“We are going to have a lot of conversations between now and Monday, as an offensive staff for sure,” said a frustrated Swinney. “This is not good enough – it is not good enough.”

Clemson (4-3, 2-2 ACC) was good enough on defense.

The Tigers held Virginia Tech to season lows in rushing yards (70), passing yards (164) and total yards (234). They also had six sacks and 10 tackles for loss.

The numbers were not just low for the Hokies, they were well, well below their season average, as they averaged 37 points and 434 yards per game coming into Saturday’s contest.

“Defensively, again, there are certainly a couple of plays you would like to have back, but if you would have told me coming into this game that we would hold them to 1.9 (per rush), 20 points and half of what they have done all year, sign me up for that. Sign me up for it,” Swinney said. “Six sacks. I would have taken that in a heartbeat.”

Remember, when the defense was struggling following last year’s Homecoming loss, Swinney met with defensive coordinator Tom Allen and changed things up. He all but fired then safeties coach Mickey Conn as defensive passing game coordinator and moved Thomas Allen into that role for the remainder of the year, which cleared up a lot of issues.

It makes you wonder if the Clemson coach will do something similar this year.