Editor’s note: Rough transcript of Dabo Swinney’s postgame opening statement. Light edits for clarity and flow
Dabo Swinney: Well, I thought y’all would be here at 10 o’clock when y’all came to work today. What a weird day. Just a crazy day. First of all, appreciate our fans for hanging in there—crazy day, weather, craziness in the first half—but I really do appreciate our fans for hanging in there with us. When the guys needed it, they were there for them, and I really appreciate that.
I’m proud of our team. There are a lot of things that win football games, but two of the things you’ve got to have—not just to win a game, but to have a really good team, a good season—are resilience and courage. You’ve got to have some freaking courage. About everything that could go wrong was going wrong with these guys. Obviously, you’re coming off a really disappointing week and a lot of noise for these kids—managing disappointment. And then you step in there, and all of a sudden it’s craziness, and you spot it. You can’t spot a team like that two touchdowns, and that’s what we did.
The first touchdown was 100% on us as coaches. Should’ve never happened. We did a poor job recognizing they had personnel that we hadn’t prepared for, and we put Jamal Anderson in a bad, bad position there. That’s where we’ve got to be better—getting the timeout called and not letting that happen. That’s number one.
Then you kind of hang in there and battle around. Put yourself in Cade Klubnik’s situation, right? He’s been crucified all week—very disappointing, didn’t play well last week—and now you come into the game, the guy stops rushing, puts the ball up, you’ve got an easy little access throw—and pick-six. Crazy. But how are you going to respond?
As I told you last week, if the worst part of that game last week was that our best player played poor, sign me up for that—because there’s one thing I’ve got no doubt on: what No. 2 is made of. It shines you up, or it grinds you up. It’s all about what you’re made of. I know what that kid’s made of, and you saw that tonight.
So now you’ve got that happening, and the very next drive he goes right back out there and takes us right down the field. That throw to Bryant Wesco Jr. over the cloud player—what a throw. Just a gutsy drive all the way down the field. And then once again you think you’ve got a touchdown, but the knee’s down. It was one thing after another. So instead of 16–7 and you’re feeling like, “Okay, we’re back where we need to be here, we’ve spotted them two scores,” it’s 16–3—kind of a different feel.
But that drive was huge because they felt that, and they needed that. And then they went five straight scoring drives—five straight scoring drives, 27 unanswered points after that pick-six. That’s what champions do. That’s what resilience looks like. That’s what courage looks like. That’s what toughness looks like—especially mental toughness—and I was super proud of how they responded.
Just an incredible fight from our team and something we can build on for sure. My favorite part of the game: five straight scores and a four-and-a-half-minute drive at the end. Get the ball four and a half minutes, and they can’t get it back. A lot of great things.
Got Adam Randall going—what a gutsy game for him too. Fourth-and-two, he gets the first down, we got the fumble, so we don’t get points there off the turnover—missed opportunity. It felt like everything was going against us. And man, 21 for 112 and 165 all-purpose. I was really proud of Adam—tough, tough runs. Wesco obviously, big game—118 yards.
Cade Klubnik was 18-of-24, 196 yards and two touchdowns—and he had two drops I can think of off the top of my head. Really proud of how he responded. Did a good job. We were 3-for-3 in the red zone. We were better on third down. Should’ve had a couple more. Really proud of what I saw out of that group, and that’s what they’re capable of doing. For two quarters we were pretty good. Hopefully we can pick up there as we move forward.
Defensively, the biggest thing was the sacks—really timely sacks that negated some field position. Stopping the fake was huge—great job by Avieon Terrell there. That quarterback had not thrown any interceptions, so to pick him off three times—and really Ronan Hanafin four; that’s why we moved him to DB, he forgot how to catch—man, we were fortunate. And those are misplays, you know, because that was the drive they went on, and we ended up stopping the field-goal fake. Two good weeks for Ronan—he’s had two picks in two games. Gets his hands on the ball.
Ricardo Jones—good things happen when you get to the ball. That ball bounced right off Ashton Hampton’s butt—I don’t know if y’all saw that. He’s got a soft tush. We can thank his mom and dad for that. Bounced right up off his tush, and Ricardo’s hustling to the ball to get it picked off. And then Ashton had a great pick. Just a really good job. Wade Woodaz had another big game. A lot we’ve got to clean up. I thought we were poor in third-and-long. We’re doing a really good job of creating third-and-long, but we’ve got to do a better job of getting off the field in third-and-long. That’s an area of improvement.
Awesome job—that’s two games in a row we’ve won the margin. If we keep that up, we’ll win a lot of games. Positive. But to me, kind of the quiet positive in two games is our special teams. Nolan Hauser had a couple big kicks—those were huge. Obviously we stopped the fake. The execution of the deep onside was a big, big play in the game—great job by Robert Gunn III. We kind of caught them off guard, kid’s fair catching it, and that ball was on the five. All of a sudden you start field position on the five-yard line. I thought that was really well executed. The 30-yard kickoff return by Adam was a big play.
Jack Smith—I’m proud of Jack Smith. I know y’all have been asking me a lot of questions about our punters. He averaged 45. He was 44 last week; he was 45 today—had another 50-plus yarder. I’m really proud of him and the job he’s done for us these first couple games. No Tristan Leigh, no Antonio Williams—probably our best offensive weapon—and then no Khalil Barnes. A lot of guys out, but guys stepped up and they responded, and it was a huge, huge win for us. Anytime you can get a win, it’s good. I think it’s the third-biggest comeback in Death Valley history. There’s a reason why there’s only three: usually when you get down like that, you get beat. Just proud of the heart of our team and their courage and toughness and resilience to get it done.
