Dabo Swinney says Notre Dame loss is 'very disappointing' to his coaching career

The Clemson Tigers were handed one of the most humbling and humiliating defeats of Dabo Swinney’s tenure at the school on Saturday night, after the Notre Dame Fighting Irish whipped them 35-14 in South Bend. It was a shocking result that shook up in the College Football Playoff picture for the 2022 season. Following the game, Swinney spoke with the media in his postgame press conference and discussed how disappointing of a day it was for Clemson football.

“14 years as a head coach. I mean, we’ve had bad days. I don’t want to overstate but this is a very disappointing day. And it’s my responsibility. And we gave up a score on offense, a score on special teams, and a score on defense. That’s the first time that’s happened since I’ve been a head coach. So, we just got outcoached in every facet of the game. And that’s on me. It’s my responsibility,” the Clemson head coach said.

“And I wish I could say I saw it coming. We had a great week of practice. Great week of preparation. Football is a crazy game. The ball can bounce funny from time to time. If you do this long enough, play in this arena, unfortunately there’s some bad nights like this that you want to forget. And I’m glad those are few and far between. This was a really bad day, a really disappointing day. But we’ll have better days ahead. And it’s my job to make sure that happens. Tonight wasn’t the night,” Swinney said.

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“But you know, at the end of the day, we’re 8-1, not 5-3. We’re 8-1, not 4-4. Again, I feel the burden of Clemson Nation, because it’s my responsibility to win every game. And I didn’t get it done tonight. Simple as that. So, there’s nobody else to blame but me. But there’s still a lot out there for us. Got an opportunity to win the division,” Swinney said.

“We want to win the division. We don’t want to tie for the division. We want to win it. And so, we have an opportunity to win the division. We still have the opportunity to do a lot of things in this season. You know, in my 14 years here, we’ve only had one undefeated season. And it’s hard. Again, nobody likes to lose. Again, you get old enough, you’ll have a day like this. So, all you can do is respond. And we’ve always responded. We’ll respond and get back to work Monday and go again. Again, a lot of opportunity out there in our division and in this league and so forth,” the Clemson head coach said.

“But, you know, we’ve only got 21 more days left in the regular season. So, we’ve gotta make ’em all count. And tonight wasn’t our day. You’ve gotta give Notre Dame all the credit. All the credit. Their coaches, their players, they were outstanding. Again, the fans, it was a great environment. But it was a really, really disappointing night for Clemson,” Swinney said.

Swinney is right, there is still plenty for Clemson to play for in the 2022 season. Of course, their College Football Playoff berth hopes are out the window after losing to an unranked Notre Dame team. Clemson trailed for the entire game from start to finish and the Fighting Irish delivered the knockout punch in the fourth quarter.

Clemson was trailing 21-0 early in the fourth quarter, when quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei threw a back-breaking pick six which officially put the nail in the Tigers’ coffin. The 96-yard house call by Notre Dame freshman defensive back Benjamin Morrison made the score 27-0 in the fourth quarter. Clemson wouldn’t recover the rest of the way and one of the bigger upsets of the 2022 college football season was complete.

Clemson will look to rebound on Saturday, Nov. 12 against the 6-3 Louisville Cardinals.