It is no secret that the Clemson defense struggled to combat the rush attack of Notre Dame last Saturday. The Tigers came into the game as the No. 7 rush defense in the country. Despite this rank, the team struggled to find any rhythm stopping the Irish’s running backs from moving downfield.

With the next test against Louisville this Saturday at home, Clemson’s defense will have to do some self-reflection to turn around the unit’s mentality and performance this coming week.

Sophomore linebacker Barrett Carter spoke to the media on Monday, detailing his emotions following, in his own words, an “embarrassing” loss.

“I think if you’re not angry about what happened last game then should not be playing the sport,” he said. “It was embarrassing honestly, and just to line up and essentially not be able to do anything about the run game. There’s definitely a lot of anger, so we just got to turn that pain into passion and just use it as fuel for the next game. Just move on, correct the mistakes and prepare for Louisville.”

Carter was quick to credit the game plan of a talented Notre Dame offense, but he emphasized the Tigers need to step up to the standard that is expected in each one of their performances.

“As a defense we have to step up to the plate and put our big boy pants on and just fight back,” he said. “At the end of the day, we just didn’t do that. Again, I tip my hat to Notre Dame, they played a great game, they had a great plan for us, but we just have to play better as a defense and we didn’t do that.”

Carter’s teammate, Tyler Davis, spoke on why the loss was “embarrassing” and “painful” for him as well.

“It was definitely embarrassing, painful,” he said. “Just knowing that the way you played wasn’t to the standard and can’t play like that no more.”

Carter reiterated what the defensive tackle had to say about not letting a performance like the one on Saturday repeat itself. The linebacker emphasized the importance of pulling from past experiences where the Tigers faced adversity in order to successfully pull the team out of this rut it has fallen into.

“This loss, it hurts, but we’re just going to move on,” Carter said. “We know what it takes to be great, we’re just going to be resilient and move on to the next opponent, but last year’s team definitely showed us all that it takes.”