It was a tale of two halves, but really a game decided by eight minutes and change. After a two-hour rain delay, the weather-beaten Clemson Tigers found a way to pull off a monumental comeback over Bill Belichick and the North Carolina Tar Heels, 28-20. Clemson had been down by as much as 17-3 before outscoring UNC 22-6 in the second half. Simply put, Swinney said his team grew up big time.
“Man, I just love my team,”Swinney said after the emotional comeback victory over North Carolina. “They got down 17-3 and they never quit and kept battling. That’s what football is. I told them, I said, 'We got eight minutes. Don't worry about anything that’s happened. Let’s just play this play. Let’s go win second down. Let’s win third down. Let’s go score.' They grew up.”
While it was a quintessential total team effort to knock off UNC, Swinney loved what he saw out of true freshman quarterback Tait Reynolds making his first career start. He came alive after halftime.
“How about this quarterback? He was pretty bad in the first half and did a couple things in the second, but what a competitor,” Swinney said of Reynolds in his first career start for Clemson. “You saw a kid grow up tonight. He’s going to be a problem for a long time and he ain’t going to do nothing but get better.”
Clemson will take its 2-1 (1-0) record on the road to the California Golden Bears on a late kick Friday.
Dabo Swinney can use the win over UNC as a springboard to redefine Clemson
After an incredibly uninspiring first half, Swinney and his staff coached their tails off to more than make this a game. Swinney was going up against the greatest head coach in NFL history, but that kind of pressure did not crack him. In fact, it forged a diamond and may have re-ignited the fire inside this football team. Clemson is far from a perfect football team, but it has gotten better every single week.
The biggest takeaway to be had in the early afterglow of Clemson's first conference win of the season is the mental toughness this group is starting to show. Clemson may not be the most talented team in the ACC anymore, but it has a lot more heart than people would ever give them credit for. A two-hour rain delay would have broken most teams. Instead, it served as their necessary palate cleanser here.
Clemson's next two games at Cal and home versus Miami will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination. However, this team showed grit in a way that it honestly had not in quite some time. No, UNC may not be one of the better teams in the ACC again this year, but the Tar Heels are much better than they were a year ago. This just goes to show that Swinney is getting back to his roots as a coach.
Right now, Clemson should be feeling incredible, but it has to get ready for a brutal Week 4 road date.
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