Clemson football won an ugly football game Saturday afternoon.
Football games aren’t always pretty and there are times that even elite teams are going to make mistakes and that was certainly Clemson football Saturday against Syracuse.
A week after drubbing Georgia Tech 73-7, the Tigers came into this week’s game as a 45 point favorite. It is one of the highest spreads ever among two ACC teams. Unlike last week, Clemson found itself making a ton of mistakes early.
However, the Tigers still found a way to overcome their worst game in 10 months and still beat a team by nearly four touchdowns. Look around college football from Saturday and there were quite a few teams in the top 40 that cannot say that.
We have gotten to the point that when Clemson football doesn’t win a game by six touchdown margins, fans and media alike think there is something wrong, and what people fail to realize is that going undefeated is really difficult regardless of what conference or division you play in.
No different than when you go to work or school, you don’t have it every day and simply look for ways to get your job done or pass your test, that is what Clemson football had to do today and when you win by the margin that they did, they did it quite well.
Champions don’t always look like champions, sometimes they just find a way.
Good teams find ways to win when things don’t go their way or when they don’t have their A-game, elite teams find ways to win big when they make mistakes
That was a big talking from Clemson football head coach Dabo Swinney after the game.
He was taken aback by the line of questioning from reporters who wanted to focus on the negative and the mistakes instead of the perseverance that the Tigers showed by being able to overcome their plethora of mistakes to win a game.
"“There’s a lot of teams out there that would have lost this game with some of the mistakes that we made. We won the game by almost four touchdowns. I’m not getting any questions about ‘Proud of you guys for winning the game.’ It’s a lot of negative questions. You’re not going to get any negative stuff from me.”"
Once again, the media around Clemson football chooses to focus on the few mistakes that the Tigers made in a game rather than the process they relied on to overcome such a rough start.
No one is always going to be at their best, but the great ones find a way to get through it when they aren’t, and at the end of the day, Clemson is 6-0 with a very talented and hungry Boston College team up next.