Dabo Swinney after Clemson was beaten physically by Notre Dame: 'Got our butts kicked'

Clemson was stunned on Saturday night in South Bend, falling to Notre Dame 35-14 and watching its College Football Playoff chances take a serious beating. But those chances might not have taken as a big a beating as the Tigers, who Dabo Swinney said were simply beaten physically by the aptly named Fighting Irish.

No excuses.

“Just physically got our butts kicked. It’s real simple. It is,” Swinney said. “We did a lot of technical things wrong, too. Didn’t take care of the ball. They block a punt on the opening possession on the most basic thing that you could ask, and we don’t do it. Momentum, turnovers, it’s hard to turn that on the road.”

Notre Dame was able to outgain Clemson 348 yards to 281 in the game, riding a dominant rushing attack to chew clock and control the pace of the game.

Clemson struggled to get its own ground game going and some costly turnovers in the passing game proved fatal.

At this point, the Tigers are firmly on the outside looking in when it comes to the College Football Playoff race. Clemson is ranked No. 10 in this week’s CFP rankings, likely needing some chaos to unfold elsewhere to get back in the hunt, even with an ACC title game appearance almost certain.

Physically beaten by Notre Dame, Clemson still does Dabo proud

Though Clemson was physically beaten by Notre Dame, Swinney offered a positive outlook on things.

“Again, I’m proud of our guys, though,” he said. “We’re what, 4-1 on the road this year? We didn’t go undefeated on the road. We gave it all we had. We had a bad night but we’re 4-1 on the road. We’re 8-1 on the season, so that was one to forget. And the good news is we know we’re better than that. But we did not play well and we didn’t do much well at all.”

Clemson still has a handful of tricky games coming up, so finishing out the season strong will be key.

Games against Louisville, Miami and South Carolina will close out the regular-season slate, though all three are at home. Still, Clemson needs to play significantly better than it did against Notre Dame to avoid tripping up a second time.

“They played better, coached better, physically won the game,” Swinney said. “We did not; we just didn’t do what we needed to do. Lot of missed opportunities. Big missed opportunity. But that one’s over. It’s about this one coming forward.”

Clemson and Louisville will play Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET with a broadcast on ESPN.