Swinney: Thankful to Teach Off a Win, Rather Than a Loss

Regardless of whether the Tigers win or lose a game, they will never let the polls, the rankings or the outside noise define them. But Swinney does believe in holding his players and coaches accountable — and you can expect a great deal of accountability to head their way this week.

CHAPEL HILL, N. C.—Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is never one to miss an opportunity to draw a parallel between the real world and football. And following Saturday's one-point win over the North Carolina Tar Heels, he once again drew a pararrle that many people can associate with — golf.

"At the end of the day, it's about winning, and we found a way to win the game. And again, whether you win by one point or 50 points, it's a win," Swinney said. "It's like when I make birdie in golf, most of the time when I make a birdie, it usually hits off a tree, and runs across the green, hits off the golf cart, bounces back up there close to the flag, and I put it in, I write three on my scorecard. Ain't no pictures on the scorecard. 

"So a win is a win. And I'd rather learn lessons with a win than learn with a loss any day. And so again, credit to our guys, super proud of them. I think it was almost a year ago to the day, that we had the battle with Syracuse last year."

That Syracuse game signaled a turning point last season, turning a season in doubt into a historic one that finished with the Tigers going 15-0 and winning their second national championship in the last three years.

"Almost right about now. And that team went on to win the national championship," Swinney said. "So this is one week and in college football, that's all it matters. It's a week to week deal. It's hard to win. And when you could go on the road and win. And especially when you maybe don't play your best game. I give our guys a lot of credit."

The Tigers fell out of the No. 1 spot this week, after residing in that coveted spot for each of the first five weeks, not for losing a game, but for not winning a game by enough points. 

As absurd as it may seem, the eye test still matters to the pollsters and the Tigers have not passed that test — even though they have passed the only one that matters each and every week for the last 20 — winning.

"It's not easy to win. Again, I know that we're supposed to just destroy everybody," Swinney said. "Like nobody else has scholarships. Nobody else has coaches. We're just these perfect ... It doesn't work that way. We're just normal people. There's nothing special about us. We just go week to week, try to battle, find a way to win. We're not perfect. We don't coach perfect. Unfortunately we don't play perfect every down, every game. 

"But hey, we found a way to win. Kind of an ugly game in a lot of ways, but it's disrespectful to just put it all on us. You've got to give them some credit. Those kids played their heart out, and they coached their hearts out, and they played with tremendous will to win. But I'm proud of my guys, because they found a way. When we had to have it, they found a way. And that's a lot of pressure on those guys. It's a lot of pressure on them. For them to show the poise under that pressure at the most critical time, that's our heart and that's our culture."

Part of the "culture" that Swinney has built at Clemson is one of learning from their wins and loses — even for the coaches, who Swinney said were as much to blame for the issues against the Tar Heels as the players.

"We had 12 men off the sideline. We don't have stuff like that," Swinney said. "And (Travis) Etienne and Lyn-J (Dixon), both thought they were in the game. That's coaching, that's on us. That's stupid stuff. And they knew how to use the timeout. It's everything. It's across the board. There's lots of lessons that we're going to learn. We learn every week. We learn, when we win big, we learn lessons, when we win close, we learn lessons. When we lose, we learn lessons. We always try to learn and get better. And when we watch this tape, there's going to be a lot of good teaching opportunity."

Regardless of whether the Tigers win or lose a game, they will never let the polls, the rankings or the outside noise define them. But Swinney does believe in holding his players and coaches accountable — and you can expect a great deal of accountability to head their way this week.

"We don't get defined by one game. Whether it's good or bad, we just move on," Swinney said. "So we learned from each one. And again, sometimes people say, "Well, sometimes it's good to lose a game." I'm like, "Why we got to lose to learn? I like learning when we win. It's a lot better." So this isn't new. We've been winning a long time, and it's just part of what we do. We've been getting the best from everybody for a long time. It's just business as usual. Let's get back to work. Have a good Monday. Watch this tape. We'll have us a nice little film session on Monday. Can't wait. 

"It'll be great. It's called accountability. It's called ownership. It's called truth, Mental Monday. Let's get her mind right. Let's look ... Hey man, sometimes it's just, we had a great play or they have a great play. They had made a great play, but we'll focus on the things that we can do better. And again, the things that we control, and that's it. Onto the next one."