Tigers back to work Monday determined to not let Notre Dame loss linger

Clemson's defense is looking to respond from Saturday in South Bend.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Nov 07 15:09:41 GMT-04:00 2022

CLEMSON – KJ Henry walked out of the locker room Saturday night at Notre Dame and made it a point to let the media and his teammates know that the Tigers can’t let the loss to the Irish lead to a loss this Saturday against Louisville.

From what we’ve heard so far, things are headed in the right direction.

The Tigers were on the wrong end of a 35-14 score at Notre Dame Stadium, one of the worst losses of the Dabo Swinney era.

“We earned what we go tonight,” Henry said postgame Saturday. “We earned that. It wasn’t our night. A lot of things that didn’t necessarily really go our way, but we didn’t really help ourselves like coach Swinney said. We gotta find a way to bounce back. Just like we do wins, we gotta do losses the same way. We gotta watch the film on Sunday and Monday, wash it out and get ready for the next one.”

The defensive players were in on Sunday watching film – Barrett Carter said he has already seen Louisville’s games. And all the players we talked to said they are embarrassed by the lack of physicality shown by the Tigers Saturday night. Carter called it embarrassing and painful, while defensive tackle Tyler Davis stuck with the word embarrassing.

Henry didn’t hold back in his comments.

“That’s what’s unfortunate,” Henry said. “Definitely within the game when we got stops, they weren’t even quality ones because when they’re able to drive down the field and flip the field, it takes time, and it takes field position from the offense, so defensively we definitely have to singlehandedly do better in that perspective. As a whole, we gotta find a way to turn it around. It’s definitely not the end of the world, we’re still a really good team, but obviously some things happened tonight that we’re not OK with and we gotta fix it.”

The early word is that the weight room was buzzing Monday with a renewed sense of urgency after the way the game unfolded Saturday night, and Henry said the Tigers have to find a way to let the Notre Dame loss stand on its own and move on.

“Can’t let one loss turn into two, can’t let one bad game turn into two, so that’s what the mindset’s going to be,” Henry said. “Like I said, just correction all we can next week and getting ready for the next opponent.”