CLEMSON, S.C. — Eleven years ago in a drenching rain after dispatching a top-10 opponent during a marquee prime-time matchup, Dabo Swinney unleashed one of his greatest ever colloquialisms on the sport.
B.Y.O.G.: Bring Your Own Guts.
The saying was immortalized into Clemson lore and the coming-out party for the Tigers’ budding dynasty, leading to four College Football Playoff title game appearances and two national championship rings. Far beyond that wet night in Death Valley when it upset a fellow contender in Notre Dame, B.Y.O.G. showed Clemson was no longer a quaint ACC team with far fewer resources than its peers.
Now those guts, and more importantly that caliber of team, are a distant memory under the watchful eye of Howard’s Rock. A fond one immortalized around the school, but a distant one.
If anyone needed a reminder of what it looks like to be at that level, No. 4 Miami offered up an excellent example on Saturday night in a game that was hardly as close as the 41–13 final score line indicated. There were no guts, no glory and certainly no euphoric celebrations for the Tigers this season. Heck, there wasn’t even any rain, despite forecasts of a steady downpour that kept the home fans from scattering until late in the fourth quarter but did not prevent a handful of boos.
In the process of a thorough dismantling of a once-proud program, the Hurricanes reconfirmed their ACC and national championship credentials, showcasing that talent trumps guts far more often in this sport and calls into question the sweat-soaked Swinney’s plan to develop the former after so many years of relying on the latter.
“The score is not indicative of how they competed,” said Swinney, more than a half-hour after midnight locally just as storms finally rolled in. “Tough ball game. They were the better team, they’re a really, really talented team.
“Frustrating night. A missed opportunity.”
Miami defensive linemen Herbert Scroggins III (31) and Ahmad Moten Sr. (99) combine to sack Clemson quarterback Tait Reynolds during their game on Saturday. | Simon Bruty/Sports Illustrated
That’s exactly what Miami players and coaches said, too. The Hurricanes felt they could have made the four-touchdown margin even larger.
They kicked themselves about an illegal shift that took away a long Malachi Toney touchdown reception a few minutes before halftime. They berated themselves about several other penalties that stalled drives and a handful of near misses during the second half, including one would-be touchdown drive that turned into a short Jake Weinberg field goal.
Perhaps under their breath, they even muttered about what if they had been healthy, too, pertinent given that most of the Hurricanes’ starting secondary was in street clothes for the contest and the entire right side of the offensive line was lost before the second quarter was over.
Yet it failed to matter one bit, just a reaffirmation of the talent on one side and the lack thereof on the other.
“Four years ago when we came down here, we had just gotten to Miami with a roster that wasn’t what it was supposed to be and unfortunately we got our faces kicked in,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said, referencing the 2022 game then-No. 9 Clemson won, 40–10. “I’m proud of the way the guys continued to battle, and fight when so many guys went down [with injuries]. We had several freshmen in the game at several points.”
Cristobal was later complimentary of Clemson’s roster, saying the Tigers have a couple of potential first-round NFL draft picks and maybe a dozen future pros among the 105 players who make up the squad.
That may be something for Tigers fans to celebrate if they could ignore that Clemson had nine draft picks this spring but won only seven games with them last season.
“I think we grew in a lot of areas. I know it feels weird to say that after a loss,” Swinney said. “I’m confident in what we’re doing. I’m confident that we’re going to get that right.”
The optimism was so abundant that Swinney even proudly flashed a grin right after he said his team could “absolutely” compete for the ACC title. Not next season, but this one.
If only we could all have what he’s having, world peace may well be achievable on a grand scale.
Sadly, there were few indications of that in reality on a night where even the Death Valley video boards had to reach deep into the highlights to play an Ashton Hampton pass breakup as one of the plays of the game.
Clemson came into the week No. 119 in scoring offense, a figure which should slip further after posting just a single touchdown. Their biggest claim may have been holding a top Heisman Trophy candidate, Darian Mensah, to nine incompletions (18 of 27, 227 yards, two total touchdowns)—nearly as many as he had coming into the game (12).
“In the end, not good enough,” Swinney said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys growing right before our eyes. We’ve got to close the gap. Hopefully we can go have a season where we’ll maybe have an opportunity down the road to play in a game like this. You don’t have a margin for error.”
The margin has vanished at a place which once found ways to overcome it all the way to the very top of the sport.
After losing just seven times between 2015 and ’20, the Tigers are now 10–8 overall in the last two seasons and only 7–8 against power-conference opposition. Saturday night was the first time Swinney arrived in Death Valley as a double-digit home underdog. The Hurricanes handed him the most humbling home victory since Florida State won 51–14 on its way to a BCS title in 2013.
What may be more difficult for fans in orange and purple is just how far the team has fallen compared to programs which once held themselves up against the Tigers instead of the other way around. Clemson lost by 31 to Georgia in the opener two years ago, by two touchdowns to Texas in the CFP first round that same season and by two scores to Penn State in the Pinstripe Bowl last year. They were run out of the building against LSU last month in the opener against Lane Kiffin, a 41-point loss which is the biggest in the Swinney era.
At a place whose football facility is imprinted with P.A.W.—Passion About Winning—everywhere, there’s little of it occurring and certainly nowhere near enough to have a passion about it.
Swinney’s $57 million buyout at the end of the season is still largely prohibitive and, as it stands, would be the second largest in the sport’s history after Jimbo Fisher’s exit package from Texas A&M. If he was at a place anywhere other than the one he nearly single-handedly turned into a national powerhouse, there would be real exit conversations after this loss. With two months left in the season, there still may be.
The good news for Swinney is there will be no rash decisions made about his hot seat. Tigers athletic director Graham Neff would much rather focus on the larger issues impacting college sports the rest of the year than running a shadow coaching search.
That would not be the case if Swinney was coaching at LSU, where Louisiana’s governor would surely be raising up a storm about there being time for a change if he had witnessed such a one-sided affair. It wouldn’t hold true at USC either, which might look appealingly at that buyout figure compared to what it may ultimately have to pay to move on from Lincoln Riley. Even Florida State fans may have to chuckle at Clemson’s predicament as they confront their own amid the Seminoles’ woes of falling short of their historical standard.
That’s where the Tigers are now, too, deluding themselves into thinking they’re just a few plays away from being on the same level as a program like Miami that looks fully capable of returning to the national title game.
Clemson has never felt further from that being the case, no matter how many guts it might bring on any given Saturday.
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