Dabo Swinney’s postgame thoughts following Clemson’s narrow win over Georgia Tech
By SDS Staff
Published:
The Clemson Tigers kept their College Football Playoff hopes alive by narrowly defeating the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 14-8.
Following the win, Dabo Swinney spoke to the media about the game:
Opening comments
“What an amazing game. Congratulations to you all for hanging in there. … First of all, congratulations to Georgia Tech. They fought their tails off. We are going to get everybody’s best shot. That’s something we earned around here. Unbelievable effort by our guys. Tremendous heart. Tonight was an incredibly strange game with some unbelievable situations that came up. We are getting better but still a work in progress. This is the type of game we can grow from.”
On going shotgun instead of under center on the final series of the game
“That’s just what we do and that’s what we’ve always done. We definitely thought about going under, but we’ve got a young quarterback. We just went with what we’re comfortable with and we had a good play. It’s not like we didn’t have a good play. We just dropped the ball, so it doesn’t matter if you’re under center or what. If you drop the ball, you put yourself in jeopardy.”
On playing a 5-hour and 27-minute game due to a delay
“Never, ever, ever in, I entered college in 1988, and I have never, ever, ever experienced a game like that. … I’ve never come out and had to finish a half and then go right into the third quarter. It was really a crazy day, but man, what an unbelievable effort by our guys. Super, super proud of our team.”
On using D.J. Uiagalelei more in the run game
“We always run our quarterbacks, but that’s what we had to do to win the game. Just their style of play and how they were, the structure of their defense tonight, that was the weakness. I guess they thought we couldn’t do it or wouldn’t do it consistently, so proud of our guys for doing what they had to do to win this game.”
Did Clemson’s offense grow up against Georgia Tech?
“Absolutely. That’s what’s so frustrating, we didn’t get enough reward for what I was seeing. We are kind of who we are right now. We are young on that side of the ball and have some guys going through some growing pains. But you know, you got three phases and obviously we are kind of led by our defense right now, like we knew we would be. But we took some steps forward today. There might not be a lot of things tonight that make people go, ‘wow’ and see, but I see. A lot of things we can build on, teach from, and grow from. How we had to go win the game. Hopefully we can grow out turning the ball over, penalties, and just finish some of these drives. We just have to play through it. I wish it was perfect every time we went out there and we did everything just right. That’s kind of where we are right now, but we are getting better. If we can just keep learning, keep showing up, keep preparing, keep fighting, get a little better fundamentally and stop shooting ourselves in the foot, we’ll be where we need to be. We’re building a good foundation. But it ain’t going to get no easier. On the road this week. Crowd noise on the road when it’s all against you. Operational procedures is an area we’ll have to work really hard on this week.”
You can watch Dabo Swinney’s press conference below:
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
