Dabo Swinney talks about effects of Clemson-Georgia Tech delay

Clemson barely snuck away with a 14-8 victory over Georgia Tech on Saturday. The Tigers led 7-3 at halftime, which came a few seconds early due to a weather delay. The delay caused both teams to have an extended halftime, and play did not resume for nearly two hours. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said that it was hard to adjust to the delay and that the Tigers used it to refresh and re-hydrate before resuming.

“It was crazy,” Swinney said to reporters after the game. “We talked a lot about the situation. I knew I was going to use a timeout right there. I had I think two, I think they had one. We talked about them coming out and maybe trying to steal a possession with a hard count or something like that. Anyway, they had a nice little play and got it. And just making sure everybody was aware of the situation that we were going into.  It wasn’t an end of a quarter; this was the end of a half even though we’re still out there going to go play. That was a little different. But we hydrated, we got a lot of nutrition in us, kind of refueled.”

Swinney: ‘I’ve never really been part of that’

While weather delays are seen from time to time in college football, they aren’t as frequent as they sometimes appear to be. For Swinney, it was the first time that he had been in a situation like that.  

“When we first went in they said 30 minutes,” Swinney said of what Clemson did during the delay. “So, we didn’t think we had a lot of time. You normally get like 20 for halftime, so we didn’t think it was going to be that much. And then when we got in there for 10 or 15 minutes or something they came out and say well it’s going to be six o’clock or whatever. Then it was 6:45. So, we met as a group, and then we broke up individually. But they were able to just kind of get comfortable, take their shoes off and stuff like that and just get themselves in a comfortable situation. Again, we just adjusted.

“We met a lot as coaches to take advantage of the time on what we needed to do, especially offensively, and how they were playing us and what we need to do to give them a chance to go win the game. And we stretched and just tried to keep them engaged. Then we got a plan to be able to go out because they were going to give us a 10-minute warning and what we needed to do when we got out on the field as far as the stretch and kind of a mini pregame situation to get them ready. I’ve never really been part of that, but proud of our guys.”

Georgia Tech outscored Clemson 8-7 over the final three quarters, but the Tigers squeaked by with a six-point victory. Clemson has fallen a bit in recent AP Polls but sit at No. 9 entering Week 4. The Tigers travel to Raleigh, North Carolina to take on NC State on Saturday.