Dabo Swinney: No Regrets Giving Ohio State Ranking Motivation in Sugar Bowl Thrashing
Dabo Swinney wasn't trying to give Ohio State motivation to dismantle his team in the Sugar Bowl when he ranked the Buckeyes outside of his top-10 Coaches Poll ballot.
The Clemson head coach was sending a statement about what he thought of all teams that didn't play a certain number of games. For Swinney, he's been in six consecutive College Football Playoffs, so he believes motivation to play well on the big stage doesn't come from things like that.
However, putting the Buckeyes No. 11 on his ballot didn't hurt their fuel in a 49-28 thrashing of Clemson in the CFP semifinal Friday night. A loss to the Tigers a year ago and dreams of a rematch played huge factors in what Ohio State did to Swinney's squad, and he isn't bothered by his ranking.
"No, I don't regret any of that, and, you know, polls have nothing to do with motivation," Swinney said. "Both teams are highly motivated to play, and I think they're a great team. That had nothing to do with Ohio State, I said they were good enough to beat us, good enough to win the whole dang thing.
"I didn't think anybody that didn't play at least nine games in my poll, I wasn't going to put them in the top-10 so I wasn't going to change that just because there was a chance we could play them, so I don't have any regret about that. The only thing I'm going to regret is obviously we didn't do a good enough job getting my team ready."
Ohio State certainly looked more prepared and better coached throughout the game. The Buckeyes used a balanced attack to rack up 639 yards and got six touchdown passes from quarterback Justin Fields. The OSU defense got after Trevor Lawrence all night and shut down Travis Etienne in the run game.
Clemson, meanwhile, struggled with Ohio State up front and couldn't keep track of receivers or tight ends in the secondary. The Buckeyes' 394 yards were the most ever allowed in the first half under Swinney.
"All you can do is give them credit," Swinney said. "They earned it. They just went out and played an unbelievable game. Both teams were motivated. We had great preparation, I mean, tremendous focus in preparation. But we didn't play well."
Swinney said the Buckeyes were able to get momentum during a run of four unanswered touchdowns, and the Tigers couldn't get it turned around, getting within 14 was as close as they would come to rallying in the second half.
"We just didn't do some of the very basic things that you have to do to win games like this," Swinney said. "You got to give them credit for that, but you know we'll learn from it. We'll grow from it."
