Dabo Swinney compares offensive struggles to 2016 season, role of ‘rat poison’

Dabo Swinney turned back the clock to almost 10 years ago when comparing this year’s offensive struggles to Clemson teams of the past. The 2016 team finished 14-1 and ended up winning the College Football Playoff National Championship Game over Alabama.

Granted, the Tigers were 9-0 before being upset by Pitt in November that year. This year, Clemson and Swinney are 1-1 after a Week 1 loss to LSU and a less than stellar win over Troy, whom they also struggled with in 2016, winning 30-24.

“External things can’t determine your performance,” Swinney said. “If it does, then you’re always going to be controlled by external things. When you’re in the arena, you’ve gotta be really disciplined with how you think and what you focus on. Where your focus goes, your energy flows. We all get eight conference games. Every game is a playoff game, that’s just how it is, that’s just how you have to look at it. 

“When you lose one, you’re not out, but you’re a little uphill. I feel like I’m living 2016 all over again, honestly. In fact, I went back and looked at my notes from after the Troy game and it was like I could’ve just erased the names, walked into the team meeting with the same comments. Different reasons, but same comments. The only difference is we made one more play than Auburn in the opener, came down to a Hail Mary. We played terrible … Honestly, it’s similar to this team. That was the first time they got all the rat poison. This group really hadn’t had the rat poison, they’ve just had the ‘you suck’ poison.”

Channeling his inner-Nick Saban, Swinney discussed how Clemson has had to deal with some adversity. The Tigers look to bounce back this weekend at Georgia Tech Saturday.

“This group hasn’t really had to manage that. I don’t think some of them have managed it well, obviously. Just being real,” Swinney said. “And I would say the same thing about that [2016] group. Nobody voted us high in ’15, we just kept winning. Coming into 2016, there was a lot of rat poison, as Coach Saban liked to talk about. You’ve got all these guys back, all these experienced guys up front, guys on defense and you [think] you’re just going to press play, right to Tampa. That’s kind of how I felt with that team.”

Dabo Swinney compares current Clemson squad to 2016

If 2016 is any indication, the Tigers will get it together and go on an incredible run. But, Swinney said it was early and they still have to take it one game at a time.

“You don’t just hit fast forward, it don’t work that way,” Swinney said. “This ain’t a video game or on the screen where you just hit 10 seconds forward, hit the arrow and it goes to the next thing — that ain’t how this works. You’ve got to play every game, you’re getting everybody’s best shot. If Cade throws the touchdown to Tyler Brown and we win in overtime, I’m still pissed on Monday, ain’t nothing changed. Nothing changes, it’s how you play. I’ve won a lot of games where we played like crap, I’ve lost some games where we’ve played really good.

“I kept telling that [2016 team], You keep touching that stove, it’s going to burn you. And sure enough, Pittsburgh has 600 yards of the shovel pass right up our you know what.

I’ve been doing this a long time, it doesn’t always go perfect. We continue like this, we ain’t going to win many games. We’ve got to get in rhythm on offense. We’ve got the dudes.

The part that’s supposed to suck is my punter and my special teams, and they’re playing great. ‘Nobody’s ever going to stop them, they’re never going to punt.’ Well you forget that you’ve got to go play the game and you’ve got to execute.” 

Clemson can’t take anyone lightly. While it was more coach-speak, Swinney’s words echoed true as it relates to this current team.

“Everybody’s got good coaches and players,” Swinney said. “Our execution is just not where it needs to be, the precision and the details, it’s just not. I’ve got great players that are going to play on Sunday, but everybody’s got a job to do. We better be on point this Saturday, because this will be a battle.”