What Dabo Swinney said after Clemson football’s blowout loss to No. 1 Georgia

Here are a few highlights from Dabo Swinney’s postgame press conference after No. 14 Clemson’s 34-3 loss to No. 1 Georgia on Saturday in the Aflac Kickoff Game.

Dabo Swinney reacts to UGA loss

“They just kicked our freakin tales in the second half..

“Just really disappointed. I thought we did some good things in the first half but you’ve got to play four quarters.

“When you get beat like that, that’s on the head coach. That’s on me. That’s complete ownership of an absolute crap second half.

“Sometimes you get your butt kicked and we did today. You’ve got to give Georgia credit and move on from it.

“We’ve got to battle back. It’s a long season ahead. Georgia is a great football team. This is one game. Whether you get your butt kicked or lose by one point, when you lose you lose. It’s 0-1.

“We’ve got to flush it and we’ve got to learn from it. I don’t shy away from games like this. When you play games like this, you’ve got a chance to learn and you’ve got a chance to teach.”

On transfer portal criticisms

“People are gonna say whatever they wanna say ... We do what’s best for Clemson, year in year out ... When you lose like this, (they’ve) got every right to say whatever they wanna say.”

“Say whatever you wanna say, write whatever you wanna write. That comes with it. It’s just part of it.”

On QB Cade Klubnik

“I thought he played well ... A lot of bright spots ... We put him in third and longs ... I was really proud of his postgame comments in the locker room, really impressed to hear that from our leaders”

On rebounding for App State

“We’ve got maybe the best Group of Five team in the country coming in ... We’ll get back at it Monday”

“We did a lot of good things, but it doesn’t matter when you get your ass kicked in the third and fourth quarter”

On offensive struggles

“We haven’t some of the basic things the way we need to do ... When we made a big play, we had a big penalty ... It was just disappointing. That’s where it is”

On the rest of the 2024 season

“We’ve got a long season ahead. We’ve still got a chance. There’s not anything off the table for this team. It’ll all be written when it’s all said ... it’ll all be written in November and December”