Clemson beat No. 20 Louisville by a score of 20-19 on Friday night at the Cardinals’ L&N Stadium despite a bunch of mistakes, including two at the goal line on consecutive plays.

Trailing Louisville by six points, 19-13, early in the fourth quarter, Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik handed the ball off to Peter Woods on its heavy package on third down. Woods fumbled the ball trying to stretch it over the goal line and the Tigers recovered the loose ball at the 1.

Then on fourth down, Klubnik tried to give the ball to Woods again. However, the defensive tackle was not expecting the ball and it was fumbled and recovered by Louisville to end the Clemson scoring threat with 11:26 to play.

After the game, Swinney called the back-to-back fumbles at the goal line “a debacle.” He said that on the fourth-down play, Klubnik was supposed to hand the ball to running back Adam Randall instead of trying to hand it off to Woods. It was an “unbelievable” moment in the game, as Swinney put it.

“Obviously just the debacle on the goal line on fourth-and-1. Oh my goodness. On third down and fourth down,” Swinney said. “The fumble, and then we’re supposed to hand the ball to the back, and we turned around and tried to hand it to Peter – that was just unbelievable.”

Fortunately for the Tigers (5-5, 4-4 ACC), those errors at the goal line didn’t prove costly in the end.

After Louisville (7-3, 4-3) took over at its own 2-yard line, Clemson’s defense forced a three-and-out, and the Cardinals had to punt from the 7. The Tigers got the ball back at their 44-yard line and went on to take a 20-19 lead with 7:16 to play when Randall scored on a 1-yard touchdown run.

It took the Tigers four plays to get into the end zone again after getting a first-and-goal at the Louisville 10-yard line following a 46-yard run by Randall. But this time, Randall was able to punch it in on fourth-and-goal for what would end up being the winning score.

“We had some critical mistakes, but the defense went and got a big stop,” Swinney said. “That was a huge three-and-out with [Louisville] pinned deep, and then the offense goes right back down and scores. It was just incredible, and we get another fourth-and-1 and just a gritty, gritty run by [Randall] and everybody getting him in the end zone.”