Sunday Night Notebook: Dabo Swinney Talks Pitt Loss, Updates Injuries
Clemson suffered its third loss of the season on Saturday 27-17 to Pitt, dropping the Tigers to 4-3 overall and 3-2 in ACC play.
Head coach Dabo Swinney met with the media on Sunday night to discuss the loss, as well as provide some updates on the team's health.
Pitt Loss:
"They made the plays that made the difference in the game and we didn't, got to give them credit," Swinney said. "Right now we're not a team that has a big margin for error. Just too many missed opportunities, that's for sure. You know at the end of the day we lost a turnover margin and again didn't make the plays."
"You got to give Pitt credit because they made the critical plays in the critical situations and that was the difference in the game. but. Tough, tough game for sure, hurts, but, you know, dust yourself off and keep moving forward. Got a lot of ball left and our focus is just trying to finish strong and start just trying to find a way to win this week and go from there."
Injury Update:
"I've never been through a season like this, you know,, with the type of injuries that we've had," Swinney said. "We had, when we came out of the game last night we had total 18 total scholarship players unavailable. And now we've got 14 guys that are done for the year. We hope to get four of them back this week, we hope to get (Joseph) Ngata, EJ (Williams) and (Hunter) Rayburn and Jake Venables back. But we got 14 guys that are out for the year."
"Matt Bockhorst, confirmed he tore his ACL and heart just breaks for him. I mean that kid is given every ounce of everything he's had in his career and proud of all of his accomplishments, that he's a national champion, he's a multiple ACC champion and, you know he's a two-time graduate. He's working on his master's right now and I just really appreciate everything that he's done and I know that you know this, but he'll still continue to serve this team and in and lead. Love that guy and Braden Galloway, separated his shoulder and most likely he's probably out the rest of the way."
Update on Justin Foster:
"Unfortunately Justin Foster is done for the year," Swinney said. "You know you've probably noticed he didn't play last night, he didn't play much the game before and he's been battling a lower back. So we've done a couple of epidurals on him, and it's just not really getting the job done. It's just at the point where he's going to have to have some back surgery to alleviate the problem. So that's going to put him out for the rest of the year too."
On Season as Whole to This Point:
"Whether you're playing, coaching or whatever, you're gonna have some crazy years and this has been a crazy year for us," Swinney said. "But it will make us better. I mean there's no doubt about that. It hurts right now but in the long run we will grow from it, just like we always have. But we're right now we're a 4-3 team. So we got a lot to play for, a lot in front of us. We got a chance to win a game and a lot of guys that are learning a lot of lessons that'll pay off for us down the road. Not happy where we are but the focus on trying to finish strong."
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