Dabo Swinney rips officials after controversial pass interference: 'One of the worst calls I've ever seen'

Clemson fell to Duke 46-45 on Saturday afternoon, bringing the noise around coach Dabo Swinney to a thundering roar. But a questionable pass interference call in the waning moments of the game brought an even bigger outcry from the Tigers faithful.

Duke was facing a fourth-and-10 from the Clemson 18-yard line, trailing by a touchdown at 45-38 with about a minute to play. Quarterback Darian Mensah threw over the middle toward Que’Sean Brown, who appeared to throw down Tigers defensive back Avieon Terrell.

The call went against Clemson, though. The crowd went nuts. Dabo Swinney was apoplectic.

He could hardly contain himself in a post-game press conference. And that moment was a huge center of his focus, though there were plenty of other problems he also pointed to.

“Really, really frustrated. Some critical penalties,” Swinney said. “I don’t even know what to say about the last call. Y’all saw it. It shouldn’t come down to that, we had plenty of opportunities to win the game, but that’s one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen in a game ever in my entire coaching career. Ever.”

Dabo Swinney would break down the call, which granted Duke a first down at the Clemson 3-yard line. The Blue Devils would score one play later, then convert a two-point conversion to take the lead.

Clemson’s offense couldn’t rally to get in field goal range in the final minute. Game over.

“In a situation like that, I don’t really know what else to say,” Swinney said of the call. “But I don’t want to make that a deal because we should have won the game. I mean we had plenty of opportunities to win the game, but you fight your butt off and you scratch and you claw and you get in a situation like that and you have a call like that… man, I mean, that’s just more salt in the wound.”

About five minutes later in his press conference, Dabo Swinney would circle back around to the call when asked about it by reporters. He turned the question back to them, asking a few different media members their view of the play.

“I saw OPI. What did you see?” Swinney asked. “I’m asking you. Did you watch it? Did anybody else watch it? Did you watch it? Did you think it was defensive pass interference? Anybody else got an opinion? OK, I mean I was wondering. Am I the only one that saw questionable?”

Eventually, someone replied that the contact appeared to be initiated by the offensive player. That would have meant the call was wrong.

“That’s what I thought he was calling,” Dabo Swinney said. “That’s what I thought the call was. I was shocked there wasn’t a flag, and then when I saw the flag I was like, ‘Oh good, they called OPI.’ It didn’t go our way. Must have seen something I didn’t see.”