Clemson Head Coach Says Lack of Complimentary Football Led to Syracuse Loss

The Clemson Tigers continued their nightmare start to the season on Saturday with a loss to the Syracuse Orange. 

With the loss, Clemson is 1-3 for the first time since the 2004 season. It’s the worst start to a season under head coach Dabo Swinney, who saw his units unable to compliment each other throughout the game. 

“It’s incredibly frustrating, we just cannot seem to get on the same page and play complimentary football,” Swinney said on Saturday.  “We can’t seem to get it all together, and we kind of worked against each other.”

In the first half, the defensive unit was the liability. The Tigers gave up 24 points to the Orange in the half, including an opening drive touchdown that was immediately followed with a recovered onside kick. 

Meanwhile, on the offensive side of the ball, Swinney liked the tempo that the offense showed throughout the stretch. Clemson had four drives in the first half and scored touchdowns on two of them. 

It was the extra possession that the Orange had through the onside kick that put the team down double-digits in the half. 

“The defense was as poor as I’ve seen,” Swinney said. “Very disappointing, you give up 24 points, you give a big hole. Offense had a really good rhythm and was rolling, we got forward, but we couldn’t get the ball. Very limited possessions, so really frustrating first half.”

After a weather delay that lasted almost two hours, the roles flipped. The Clemson offense had eight possessions to try to put points on the board. However, the Tigers would score once in the 30 minutes of gameplay. 

Defense tightened up, only allowing 10 points in an additional eight possessions from Syracuse. The touchdown came from a fumble by running back Adam Randall that would put the Orange into the red zone instantly. 

“We just can't seem to put it together. Offensively, a ton of yards. You know, you don’t get style points for a ton of yards. The name of the game is finishing, you know, in the end zone, through the uprights, and we just didn't do that. 

Clemson couldn’t get anything going, even surpassing 500 yards of offence, recording 70 more total yards than its opponent. The team just could not capitalize while being in a deficit. 

With that, as well as recording the team’s third loss of the season, the journey ahead is unknown. The Tigers are in uncharted territory, with playoff hops and a spot in the ACC Championship almost nonexistent. 

Swinney will continue to guide the ship to pick up momentum, with a bye week this week being more crucial than ever before.

“We can’t sit around and dwell on missed opportunity,” the Clemson head coach said. “We've got to lock in on what we can do, and that's what I'll do, that's what our team will do, and see if we can, see if we can win a game, and battle back still a long season ahead, basically an eight-game season for us at this point.

 We just got to fight our tails off to find a way to win a game and create some momentum.”