Dabo Swinney Dismisses Idea That Clemson Offense Has Been Pressing

For weeks, social media and message boards have been full of Clemson fans claiming head coach Dabo Swinney was making excuses for the Tigers 3-2 start.

Swinney has maintained for weeks that his teams issues are more of a result of a failure to execute, along with youth and inexperience. While all of that is true, some have brushed the reasons off as excuses.

However, on Tuesday, Swinney was given the perfect opportunity to make an excuse for his teams poor offensive play, but instead the head coach pushed back when asked if the Tigers were pressing to hard due to expectations.

“I don’t buy into none of that,” Swinney said. “I just think Georgia beat us and I think NC State beat us. It’s what I think. And we didn’t play very well. There’s things we need to do better. It’s football, I don’t buy into all that other mess.”

Swinney still maintains that the Tigers are just a few plays away from being unbeaten. At the same time, he insists even if they’d made those plays, they still would not be a very good 5-0 team.

“We got two games that came down to the last play,” Swinney said. “We didn’t win either one of them. If we made those plays and we’re 5-0, we ain’t any better, we still got work to do. But we are where we are.”

Although, in typical Swinney fashion, he is taking the positive approach when it comes to his teams disappointing start. The head coach is choosing to use the adversity his team is currently facing as a teachable moment, instead of focusing on the “what if’s.”

“It’s given us a great opportunity to teach perspective,” Swinney said. “I think that’s important because, I mean we’ve got a lot of kids on this team, they ain’t never lost hardly. Ever. And so, as I’ve said many times, sometimes there’s the lessons that you can teach in moments like we’ve had that are harder to teach when you win.”