'It's a Hurt So Good Kind of Monday' for James Skalski, Clemson Defense After Georgia Loss

The Clemson offense might have had its share of struggles on Saturday night, but the defense certainly looked the part.

While the Tigers didn't come out victorious, Brent Venables' defense played more than well enough to win. Clemson limited Georgia to just 256 total yards of offense and held JT Daniels to a pedestrian 135 yards through the air.

Veteran linebacker James Skalski, who led the team with 14 total tackles in the loss, told the media on Monday that while the team is certainly disappointed in the loss, it felt good to get back on the field and match up so well with a physical opponent.

"This is a hurts so good kind of Monday, right," Skalski said. "I'm beat up but I'm happy how it happened. So it's about time I felt that way after a game, it's been a while."

And while it was the offense that shouldered much of the criticism after managing to score just three points, Skalski said the Tigers win as a team, and lose as a team.

"All we can control is what we control on defense," Skalski said. "You know, we're just gonna keep going out there and putting our best foot forward. We're a team. It's not 'ah they didn't do this, we did that.' It's not that at all. We're in this together."

Skalski noted that the defense played well, but was far from perfect and that the Tigers had opportunities to change the game on the defensive side of the ball. However, it was the Georgia defense that made the biggest play, and it was enough to decide the outcome of the contest.

"Yeah we played good," Skalski said. "But I could pull out five, six, seven, eight plays where we got to be better we could have changed the game from our standpoint. I was never frustrated, I enjoyed every second. I thought it was a great game. We had our chances, and we didn't take them and props to Georgia, they did."

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