The mood among the Clemson faithful was mostly somber last night after losing to Alabama in the national championship game, but head coach Dabo Swinney managed to keep his head held high.
Speaking to reporters in his postgame press conference, Swinney remained as confident as ever despite suffering a heartbreaking loss.
“There’s no doubt that we will be back,” Swinney said. “It won’t be 34 years before we’re going to be back, I promise you that.”
“Our team is built to sustain success,” Swinney continued. “We’ve got the right ingredients from a toughness standpoint, talent standpoint, and then just, again, the will to win and the culture that we have in our program.”
“We’ll learn from this, we’ll grow from it, and I appreciate our fans,” Swinney added. “I thought that the crowd was amazing tonight. I really, really appreciate our fans. My heart breaks for them, too, because, like I said, it’s been a long time since we’ve stood on top of the mountain, but we’re not quite there, but we can see it, and we’ll get there.”
As hard as it may be for Tigers fans to swallow right now, Swinney is absolutely right. He has proven to be an excellent recruiter during his tenure as head coach and has key players returning to the team in 2016, namely star quarterback Deshaun Watson and fantastic corner Mackensie Alexander.
Simply put, Clemson is very well the best team in the ACC and one of the top in the nation. They gave it their all last night and left it all out on the field. There’s nothing that could have been done better on their end. Even in defeat, they took Alabama to the brink, refusing to give up even with the odds stacked against them.
Combine the returning players with Swinney’s confidence and using this loss as a motivating factor, and the Tigers could definitely have what it takes to get back to the championship game in 2016.
