There haven’t been many times in Dabo Swinney’s long head coaching career where he’s felt flat-out embarrassed following a loss.

Sure, there’s been plenty of times where he’s been disappointed, frustrated or angry after suffering a defeat. But Swinney was simply “embarrassed” by how his Clemson team performed during last season’s home loss to Syracuse.

During his radio show Monday night ahead of this season’s road matchup at Syracuse on Saturday, Swinney reflected on the Tigers’ 34-21 loss to the Orange at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium on Sept. 20, 2025.

“There’s been very few times that I’ve walked off the field and I’ve been – I’ve been frustrated, I’ve been disappointed, I’ve been pissed off, because we lost a game – but there’s been very few times I’ve been embarrassed. And I was embarrassed by how we played,” Swinney recalled.

Last year, Clemson got into a deep hole after Syracuse raced out to a 24-7 first-half lead. Clemson trailed 24–14 at halftime in the eventual 13-point loss that sent the Tigers to their worst start ever under Swinney.

Clemson was heavily favored entering that matchup, with Syracuse coming in as a 17.5-point road underdog, but the Orange dominated the Tigers in the trenches over the first two quarters and never trailed. Syracuse even led by as many as 20 points entering the fourth quarter.

“They absolutely kicked our teeth in last year,” Swinney said. “I’ve been beat many times. I’ve had some losses. Sometimes you’re just not good enough. Sometimes the other team just makes a few more plays. There’s sometimes you get beat – you played your butts off, maybe you just made a couple bad plays or whatever. But I was embarrassed by how we played in the first half of that game last year. I mean, it was an embarrassment.”

In the first half last year, Clemson was outgained 303 yards to 240, with 123 of Syracuse’s yards coming on the ground on 19 rushing attempts.

The Tigers trailed 10-0 before their offense even touched the ball. After Syracuse threw a touchdown pass on the game’s first possession, the Orange recovered a surprise onside kick, leading to a field goal.

Clemson scored a touchdown on its lone possession of the first quarter, but Syracuse went right back down the field for a touchdown to make it 17-7 early in the second quarter, and then scored another touchdown on its next possession for a 24-7 advantage.

Playing from behind for the entirety of the contest, Clemson ended up racking up 503 yards of offense, but the end result was a 1-3 start for Clemson — its worst start since 2004, when the Tigers started 1-4 when Swinney was the Tigers wide receivers coach under Tommy Bowden.

“They scored four possessions in a row,” Swinney noted of the start to the Syracuse game last year. “In fact, I think [Clemson’s] offense only had one possession in the first quarter, and it was a touchdown. Because they’d go right down the field and kicked our teeth in. Then they surprise onside [kick], and it’s 10-0. We score, it’s 10-7. I think we had just a couple possessions. But we ended up with 500-plus yards of offense — and lost. And I think that’s only happened like three times here.

“But we turned it over twice. We had two big turnovers, and we just got in such a hole. It was 24 points in like a quarter and a half, and they just kicked our teeth in. So, that was not a pleasant halftime.”

A week before the loss to Syracuse last season, Clemson suffered a heartbreaking 24-21 loss at Georgia Tech on a walk-off, 55-yard field goal as time expired.

Looking back, Swinney admits that he thinks the loss to Georgia Tech lingered into the first half of the Syracuse game and affected his team’s performance.

“I Georgia Tech beat us twice, as far as I didn’t have them ready to play in the first half,” Swinney said. “They just weren’t ready defensively. It was bad. And then the second half, they stood up and we held them to three points, and they did a nice job. But we turned the ball over. Gave up seven points off a turnover, and just got in too big of a hole. But I was embarrassed by how we played in that game. And I thought their kids, they played more physical. They were tougher than we were.”

Clemson will try to avenge last season’s loss against Fran Brown’s Syracuse squad when the two teams meet again this Saturday at JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, N.Y.

Kickoff is set for noon on ESPN2. It will mark the 13th meeting in the last 14 years between the two programs. Clemson owns a 10-3 lead in its all-time series with Syracuse, including a 5-1 mark on the road.