Swinney details lessons learned from Louisville loss, says team can't lose the lesson

Swinney says the Tigers have to move on but learn from the lesson.

David Hood - Senior Writer - Tuesday, November 05 2024

CLEMSON – The real loss is losing the lesson.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney met with the media Tuesday during his weekly press conference, and he was asked what his message is to his team after the loss to Louisville Saturday. The Tigers entered the game ranked in the top ten, in control of their own destiny and in the conversation for the College Football Playoff.

Swinney said his team simply has to keep going.

“I said it last night, life is hard. Football's hard, failure's hard, disappointment's hard. It takes courage to continue to keep going,” Swinney said. “When something doesn't go your way, you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go. I wish we never lost a game in history. It is hard and it is going to get harder and by the end of the year it probably won't be any undefeated teams. So, it is disappointing when you're in control of your destiny and then all of a sudden you are not. So, we don't control our destiny anymore. But you know what? We do control our decision. What we do today. We still control our effort, our accountability, our attitude, our work ethic. We control how we respond. We control all that.

“We could go win all of our games and we may not get to Charlotte, we don't control that, but hey, you have to go play the next game. That's why they call it a season. You play a season every single year.”

Swinney said it’s all about finishing strong, and you can’t lose the lesson that comes from the loss.

“You try to have the very best season that you can have. And in totality in our time here, we've had a lot of really, really good seasons and some seasons we've won the championship more than most,” Swinney said. “National championships and league championships. It's hard to do. So you try to coach and teach. I think it's important. There's always a lesson and honestly, you really only lose if you lose the lesson.

“There's always a lesson. These are kids. These are 18 to 22-year-old young people that work their butts off, and they're having to deal with disappointment and failure and especially in this arena, we always, in this arena, it's a little different just because it's so public and it's almost a sport to criticize and attack and things like it’s a sport of its own. Who can be the best attacker, who can be the best criticized, or who can be the best, whatever. But that's the world we live in.”

Swinney said football, like life, is hard

“And so it is an opportunity. You have a challenge, you teach, you encourage, and again, you grow, you pick yourself up and you keep going,” he said. “I always say tough people win in the end. Life is hard. Tough people win in the end and the only reason they win is because they keep going and you keep going. The only time you lose is when you just give up, and you stop. So yeah, we lost a football game. That's football. It's hard. College football is hard and going to get harder. There's going to be very few undefeated teams as you move forward, and I think that whole perception will probably slowly change a little bit. A lot of what you have in the NFL now, because the parity is going to be even more and more.”

He admitted the Tigers didn’t do what was needed to win against Louisville.

“We did not deserve to win that game last week. We didn't deserve to win, and you have to do what it takes. We didn't do what it takes,” Swinney said. “You can't change what it takes. I always say greatness doesn’t go on sale. You can't get it down at the Dollar General for less than what it costs. You have to pay full price every single week and especially when you're at a place like Clemson, you're going to get everybody's best shot. And we've got a lot of really talented players, and some of 'em are more mature than others, and some are really, really mature, and they get it, and others they don't. And sometimes you just have to learn through some setbacks, but there's always setbacks. There's always setbacks. But that's why you have to be resilient. People who win are resilient. People who ultimately succeed in life are resilient and they have a desire to keep on keeping on.

“That's what resiliency is. It's overcoming setbacks and obstacles and disappointment and failure by desire to keep on keeping on. That's what resiliency is. So, you got to be resilient and you get a chance to teach that. You'd much rather teach the other stuff because it's more fun when you win. But the reality is we're 5-1 in our league. There's 17 teams in this league. We're not out of it. We don't control the destiny, but we control our decision on how we're going to respond, how we're going to practice, what we're going to do about it this week. That's what we do control. So let's focus on what we control, block out the rest of it, and get back to work. Simple.”

On adjustments in the run game

“We're going to have to be a lot better at doing what it takes to stop the run. To stop the run, you got to set the edge. You have to be gap sound, you have to defeat blocks, you have to be relentless. You have to trigger and fill gaps when you're feeling it from second and third level, you have to tackle well. It's not complicated, and so we have to do those little things better.”

On if he thinks not going into the portal to get a DE was the right decision

“We love our roster. Sometimes you have some injuries and things like that, so don't have any regrets on how we put our roster together this past year. We're growing. Jaheim's (Jaheim Lawson) done some good things. Hoffler's (A.J. Hoffler) really coming on. We feel like he's developing. Armon (Mason) is getting a little bit of experience as well, but Peter's (Peter Woods) definitely one of our best players for sure. But we have to keep getting better. Got to keep getting better. Fortunately, we get most everybody back and think they'll keep developing.”