Clemson 21, North Carolina 20
Postgame Quotes: North Carolina Coach Mack Brown
Opening Statement “I congratulate Clemson on another win, I think that’s 21 straight or something. Those guys are just phenomenal. They do a great job and I do think Dabo is the best football coach in the country and he’s got the best team in the country. So with that, I was so proud of the way our team fought and prepared and the coaches had them prepared. They fought tooth and nail with the best team in the country and it came down to the end. I felt like we couldn’t win the game unless we made a fourth-and-one in the fourth quarter so that’s why we went for the fourth-and-one at the plus 45… but then we came back and had the drive at the end of the game to win and I felt like with the clock getting down to 1:16, our best chance to win was to go for two because we had been out there a lot on defense and were worn down and they had more depth than we had. I just felt like it was our chance. And then we still had a minute-sixteen. We tried to kill some time but we scored too fast. Phil [Longo] thought he had a good play to win the game on two points and we just didn’t do it.
“I told the players that we’re not into moral victories, that can’t happen, because you’ve got to learn to win. Winning is what matters, but that as a coach you’re a reflection of your team. I told them in my 31 years of coaching I’ve never been prouder of their effort because if I’m a reflection of the way those guys fought tonight then I’m very, very proud of that.”
On whether he will lose sleep or grow from this game “No, you grow. This shows us what we can be. I told the guys, we had the best Sunday practice, the best Tuesday, Wednesday practice, Thursday practice. Friday they were so locked in. It was a fun week to coach, much more fun than the two previous weeks. I also told them that if you do that every week then we have a chance every week to win the rest of the games, because this is who you are but you’ve got to be that every day. We told them in the second quarter, ‘Hey, this is when you’ve been leaving and going home, so stay, let’s fight.’ We did give up a touchdown right before the half which really hurt us. I hate that … but we did come back and fight throughout the entire game. We only stripped one ball, we stopped them on one fourth down so that would be the equivalent of two turnovers. They stopped us on one fourth down. So it was two to one in turnovers. For us to win that game I thought we had to make something happen in the kicking game, which we didn’t. We tried to block two or three punts. And we had to force some turnovers and we really only forced the one and had the fourth-down stop. Let me say, too, Trevor Lawrence, anyone who says he shouldn’t be in the Heisman race didn’t watch this game. I mean, we’re after him all night and he runs away and is throwing sideways and he made a play down here to number five that was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. It should have been a sack and it’s a 15-yard gain. So give Trevor a lot of credit.”
On the decision to go for two “There was one guy making that decision and it was me.”
On the play call on the two-point play “I asked Phil, ‘do you have a play that you think is going to work to score to win the game, to beat the No. 1 team in the country,’ and he said yes, and we ran it and it didn’t work.”
On what he was thinking in the timeout before the conversion attempt “My job is to decide what gives our team the best chance to win and we were tired, we had two or three guys limping on the series before on defense, they’ve got a lot of depth, they’ve got more confidence than we’ve got. I’ve always had the theory that the longer the game goes, the best team wins and they have the best team. So, my thought was: go now. We’ve got momentum, they’re tired, they’re on the field, so that was the best chance for us to win the game. If I had to do it again, I’d do it but I’d run a different play since that one didn’t work.”
On the growth of the team “That’s who we need to be. The lesson we need to learn this week is do the work this week, not today. Because the team that practices that way, and prepares that way, is usually good on Saturday. We’ve got to do the same thing for Georgia Tech next week. You’ve got to be a team that plays to a standard and doesn’t play to an opponent.”
On how the two-point play unfolded “I have not been able to see it. It did not unfold how we wanted to, obviously. Sam fought his guts to get in… You work on two-point plays all the time and Phil was very confident. If he had said he wasn’t sure, we kick.”
On the play of Chazz Surratt “Chazz had a great game. It was as good of linebacker play as I’ve seen in a long time so I’m very proud of him. He should get better every week. Everything that happens to him is new in his life because he’s never done any of this before, but for us to outrush Clemson is a big surprise to all of us. I thought it was a big plus for the night.”
On changes in the defense compared with the last week’s game against App Sate “I think we played better. We played harder, with more energy and intensity. That’s who we’ve got to be. We’re not good enough if we don’t. When I was at Texas and we were winning all the games, you get everybody’s best shot. So, our guys were excited about Clemson probably last week before they played Appalachian, and that was a problem. We’ve got to get so we understand we’re not good enough to beat anybody unless we play as hard as we can every week. We could have very easily been 5-0. We’ve been down to the last play of the game in five games. That’s who we are. We’ve got to understand that we’ve got to work really hard to be good enough to win the game.”
On whether there is confidence gained from this game “I think so. When I went for the fourth-and-one, I told the defense, I thought the offense would make it but when they didn’t I felt like our defense would stop them. And we didn’t. That’s another sudden change, we’ve got to go out there and make a stop and that’s when they went down and scored seven points. The second time, we went for fourth-and-two. We could have kicked it but we needed to keep our defense off the field. They were on the field entirely too much that third quarter and we needed to start giving them some rest so I felt like we had to stay on the field. I felt like we had to win the game now, that was the moment. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind we should’ve gone for two, I just wish we had made it. We’re having a different conversation if we made it. You’re all talking about I’m a genius instead of an idiot, so that’s the difference in two points.”
On what the team can take away from this game “That’s what I told them… both coaches and players. We’ve got to coach better, we’ve got to play better, but we’ve got to prepare hard. If we play this hard we’re pretty good and that’s what we’ve got to do. Like Surratt, Sam [Howell] will grow – it’s a pretty tough night for a true freshman quarterback against the No. 1 team in the country, and I thought he did some good things.
Clemson 21, North Carolina 20
Postgame Quotes: UNC Players
Sam Howell, Fr. QB On what Offensive Coordinator Phil Longo told him before the two-point conversion “It is just a play that we are very confident in. In my opinion, it was a good play call.”
On what going for the two-point conversion says about the coaching staff “It shows their confidence in our team, going for it against the number one team in the country. Down by one point, going for the two-point conversion, we took our chance and it shows the amount of confidence our coaches have in us.”
On Coach Mack Brown’s message during the week “Yeah, he stressed to us all week that it’s not the best team that wins but the team who plays best in the end. We knew we had to try and take it play by play.”
On the decision to go for it on fourth down at midfield “We definitely should have gotten the first down. There was some bad decision making on my part that drive, but at the end of the day we had a chance to win it at the end.”
Dyami Brown, So. WR About the locker room after the game “It was heads down, but we have to bounce back from it. People are sad. We are all sad because we took the L, but we gotta learn from it.”
About what he hopes UNC will learn from the game “Just never give up. Don’t give up until the end because you never know what is going to happen. Positive, negative, but never give up.”
Michael Carter, Jr. RB Thoughts on the last play “There’s a lot that goes into a play like that. I feel like we had a good team effort today. I think we executed it, but it was good on good. Clemson made a play – credit to them.”
Whether or not to go for two “Honestly, you want to make the best decision to win. Regardless, if we want to kick the field goal go into OT or go for two, but I fully trust our coaching staff and the decision that they made. We just came up short.”
What the team learned today “That we can be as good as we want to be because, a lot of credit to Clemson, but we feel like we can beat anybody. The key to that is just having a good week in practice. I am going in and watching the film and doing that every single week. And playing to a standard of ourselves instead of playing down to our opponents. And so far that has kind of been the story. We play good teams well, teams that people feel like we should beat. And another thing, we feel like we’ve got to respect every single opponent. And I feel like we do that. It’s finding a way as a team to attack every game the same way.”
Myles Dorn, Sr. DB On walking off the field with a one-point loss “It hurts just like any other loss. You go into a game, you expect to win every game you play. The ones that are close hurt the most. We had opportunities to win, got to take advantage of it.”
On having three linebackers instead of two “I think that Dominique Ross brings a different kind of aspect to the game. He is listed as a linebacker, but he can play safety, he can move very well. To have him out there, it changes the dynamic of the game. What we can do is we can get a little more versatile.”
Jeremiah Gemmel, So. LB On the positive things to take from the game “If you would have told anybody in the country we were going down to the last play with Clemson, 21-20, they would have probably just laughed in our faces.”
On the key to playing so well today “I think we just had a really great week of practice. We’ve never had such a great week of practice like we did this week, and it started on Sunday.”
On what it was like watching the last play as a defensive player “Obviously, you’re upset you didn’t get the two-point conversion. But I was all with it. And we had the momentum going down, I would have gone for two, too.”
Brian Anderson, So. OL On what to take away from the game, despite it being a loss “I think in any game you play there’s a lot of things you can go back and look at, finding the positives and negatives that you need to work on, but I think as a group we can just kind of capture that, that we have that special fight. We have the ability to fight all four quarters and take any team we want to down to the wire. I feel like it was a well-played game, a well-coached game, unfortunately it did not finish the way we wanted to. We were in a position where going for two was the best choice with the momentum we had. And unfortunately, we didn’t play out the way we did. The positive side is just looking forward to it, we potentially have the chance to play them again at the end of the season at the ACC championship. So I mean, just keeping our head high.”
On how Sam Howell played under pressure “I think something that has earned him that spot is the fact that he is so level-headed and steady. I think just the confidence going into the game that he has is unmatchable. It’s something I haven’t seen. But I think with a packed-out crowd like this, I think the fans and student section have really established a name for themselves. Playing in Kenan Stadium, there is an X factor.”
Chazz Surratt, Jr. LB On what he attributes to his performance today “I just got to thank my teammates first. They’re really good, too. Coach [Jay] Bateman had a really great game plan to get me out into space and try to get pressure on the quarterback and that kind of stuff. So really my teammates and my coach. I would say the preparation as a team we had all week really locked in and we focused. We wanted to come out here and play well versus the No. 1 team in the country.”
On if this loss is something that bothers him or if it’s an opportunity to grow “We wanted to win, but on the other side of it, we played hard. We went against the No. 1 team in the country. I think we battled every play. I think as a team, we’re a young team, so we’re just going to grow from it I think the best we can.”
On Coach Brown’s message in the locker room “He was proud of us. He was proud of the way we fought. We took them down to the last play of the game. That’s all you can ask for.”
Clemson 21, North Carolina 20
Postgame Quotes: Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney
Opening statement “First of all, I am unbelievably proud of our guys for finding a way to win. That’s what it’s all about. We obviously made enough mistakes to lose the game. I’d probably say they probably outplayed us. We had a lot of mistakes. A lot of critical, critical errors at critical times. But when we had to make a play, we made it. And that’s what winners do. So just really proud of our guys. It was a game that we certainly can learn a lot, and will. We’ll grow from it. It’s not easy to win. I know we’re supposed to just show up and beat everybody by double digits and all that, but this is college football. We’re a new team. This team is learning and growing.
“First of all, really proud of our guys. Just gutsy. A lot of mistakes that we had to overcome, but when we had to make the plays, we made the plays. Just an incredible play there at the end on the two-point play, so that’s the first thing I’d say. Second thing is how about North Carolina? What can you say about that group? Unbelievable effort, and that’s what happens when you give a team momentum and all of the sudden they’re in a game like that. I thought their plan was excellent as far as trying to really slow the game down. They make us put long drives together, see if we cannot make mistakes, and we proved that we were very capable of making mistakes. Lots of penalties, the turnover, you put a nine-play drive or 10-play drive together and get nothing. That’s a field goal. Just a lot of critical… The first third-and-1. We got two downs to get the one yard and we throw the ball out on the screen, and we easily got it, we just don’t have situational awareness. We don’t get the one yard. We’re trying to hit the home run instead of just taking a single.
“And so just didn’t do some good things there. And probably needed to hand the ball off there. Two downs to get one yard, so then we miss the field goal. And then we come back and we got a third-and-1, we jump offside. Then we jump offside again. We just couldn’t really get out of our own way. Missed a few plays, but again, their plan was to play a lot of four-man, two safeties to see if we’d just be patient. And then, if we didn’t get anything, all the sudden now you’ve taken some time and then they’re huddling up and slowing the game down. We made just enough plays, obviously for them.
“Defensively, we played pretty good. We had the big play right out of the gate. They had a nice script there to open the game and caught us napping out there and had a big play on AJ [AJ Terrell]. Then we fumbled the ball and gave them the ball, they hit us on a little counter and they get a score there. Just a couple of big plays on their part. The longer the game went, and the closer that it was, and they’re still in the game, opportunity to win it, I thought they played with tremendous heart, tremendous effort. But I knew that. I knew coming in, I told our guys, “These guys are good enough to beat us. They’re good enough to beat anybody in this league. No doubt.” Now, they’ve got to play well, and they’ve got to take care of the ball, they did. They had no turnovers. We had a chance for an interception a couple times, and we didn’t make the play. For them, they were going to have to play a pretty clean game, and they did. I thought they played really, really well.
“That quarterback, man. I like him. That’s why we offered him. He’s tough. He’s gritty. He’s a great competitor. He just kind of found a guy. That’s what he does. He improvises and makes some plays. Lots of credit to North Carolina and Coach Brown. You can, again, see that he’s got them believing in what they’re doing and playing with tremendous heart and tremendous effort. But at the end of the day, it’s about winning. And we found a way to win the game. And again, whether you win by one point or 50 points, it’s a win. It’s kind of like when I make a birdie in golf. Most of the time when I make a birdie, it usually hits off a tree and runs across the green and hits off the golf cart, bounces back up here close to the flag, and I put it in and write three on my scorecard. Ain’t no pictures on the scorecard. A win is a win, and I’d rather learn lessons with a win than learn with a loss any day.
“Again, credit to our guys. Super proud of them. I think it was almost a year ago to the day that we had to battle with Syracuse last year. Almost right about now. That team went on to win the national championship. This is one week, and in college football that’s all that matters. It’s a week-to-week deal. It’s hard to win, and when you can go on the road and win, especially when you maybe don’t play your best game, I give our guys a lot of credit. I’m excited that we got an open date. We’ve got two weeks to get ready for Florida State. They’ve got two weeks to get ready for Clemson. We’re 5-0 after August and September. So we get back to play and it’s October. It’s moving fast, we’re almost halfway through the season here. Again, we’re 5-0. Not many teams out there that don’t have a blemish yet, so we’re super proud of where we are. But we’ve got to get better. We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to coach better. Again, I’m glad we got the open date and opportunity for us to get back to work, and we’ll be excited to play at home against Florida State here in a couple weeks.”
On whether it surprised him that UNC tried for the 2-point conversion "No, I wasn't surprised, we talked about. I was glad they called a timeout because I was getting ready to call a timeout. I told Brent [Venables, Defensive Coordinator], because we wanted to coach up our two-point, I told them 'They're going to go for two if they score here.’ I was going to call timeout...so it gave us an opportunity to get our two-point posse together, and we did. Brent said we would probably get the speed option, they'll put the ball in the quarterback's hands and see if they could find a crease on us. What a play, I guess it was Chad [Smith] and Xavier Thomas, it was a heckuva play right there. Again, it came down to one play and that's what happens a lot of times. We made the play that we had to make to win the game. How about the third down? The throw by Trevor [Lawrence] to Tee [Higgins]. I thought Trevor was gritty, he showed unbelievable leadership. They forced us to run him a little bit and man, he ran tough. He made some really key move-the-chains plays for us, and the touchdown on third-and-3. They were giving us numbers, so we knew we would have one more right there, it was a matter of getting in there. I thought that was a heckuva play for us, but the throw to Tee – we got a good matchup...and great throw and great play. As far as the totality of the game, just a lot of mistakes and we can learn from, but again, much more thankful that we can learn from it with a win than a loss. We are very fortunate that we were able to win the game.”
On lack of offensive consistency "Rhythm. Penalties. I mean, those are critical when you don't get the first down, when you don't get a new set of downs when you got situations when it's third-and-1 and you are in a great spot and now it's third-and-6. Again, they played a lot of coverage, but we had Justyn [Ross] a couple of times and we just missed him. We missed him for a touchdown going into this end zone down here. We had it and we just missed the throw, and then we had him another time on the seam and he almost caught it - it was a little high - but he got two hands on it and we don't make the play right there. He had three plays and I think he had three catches. But you know, it's just one of them games. The rhythm of the game. The flow of the game, and you know, mistakes add up...Give them credit they outplayed us for most of the game.”