Sunday Notebook: Dabo Swinney Addresses Georgia Loss, Injuries and More
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney met with the media Sunday night for his weekly teleconference following the Tigers 10-3 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs.
While there was a lot of bad in the Tigers' second straight loss dating back to last season, according to Swinney there were still some good things.
"First of all, congratulations to Georgia, incredibly hard fought game," Swinney said. "And, you know, they, they made the critical plays a critical time to, to get to win, and they're a great team, and congratulations to them but, again, a really hard-fought game were critical error pick-six away from 3-3 overtime slugfest. And, but just too many mistakes.
"But, you know, the other day, we did a lot of good things in the game, our defense and our special teams, more than played well enough to win the game, offensively we really struggled and, but we'll dust ourselves off on it, and, and go get better go you know and grow from it, but overall you know again it's a tough opener, it's a tough matchup, you know that going in, but I love the character and toughness of our team. I love how they competed for sure in the physicality of the game and how you have to play as far as the mentality and types of things in those types of games, all those things were present. The will to win.
"I loved all of that, but again just two elite defenses on the field. I think that'll prove to be the case throughout the year and I think both offenses will get better as we go along. So, but again disappointing that we didn't come out on top but overall a great experience for something that I think again we can really learn from and teach from because these kids care. And they're, they're deeply invested so, you know, we got to own it and, and, and get back to work. The only thing we can't do is go undefeated. So one thing we know about this team is, you know we can't go undefeated. But, but everything out there for this team. As far as our team goals are still there
Injuries:
"The only guy that, that we got any type of, you know, looks like it's going to be out for a few weeks is E.J. Williams, he's going to have to have a little surgery on his thumb. But he'll probably be out four or five weeks," Swinney said.
Clemson's National Title Odds Take a Hit:
Following the Tigers' loss, the Georgia Bulldogs assumed the second-best odds to take home the national championship (+400)—while the Tigers dropped to fourth-best at +600, according to FanDuel.
