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COACH NORVELL: First off, congratulations to Clemson, hard-fought game. Obviously it’s a game that you had a couple of extreme momentum swings that showed up throughout it.
Really proud of our guys for how they fought. Basically you take the two minutes on both sides of halftime, those were kind of devastating and some of the results of what occurred. Had a turnover. Obviously led to a quick touchdown.
The kick return coming out of half, quick touchdown. And then obviously being aggressive, trying to provide a spark. We didn’t get the fake punt and led to another short field with that. Just the things that we were executing well, just had a couple of mishaps and big swing in the game.
I thought our guys continued to battle. We had missed opportunities throughout. But they fought until the end. And I fully believed, as we were playing, that we would find a way to get back in, to be able to put ourselves in a position. And our guys did that but unfortunately we didn’t make enough plays to be able to finish the job.
You’ve got to give credit to Clemson. They did a good job. Had 100 percent ball security. We had the one turnover. Had some drives that stalled out on fourth downs. Had some missed opportunities on both sides.
But our guys, they do battle. And they believe in what we’re going to be able to do throughout the course of the game. We’ve just got to clean up some of the mistakes that are showing up that are costing us in those critical moments.
But proud of the way our guys fight. But when you’re playing good football teams — that’s what we faced the last three weeks, we faced really good teams — and it’s going to usually come down to a handful of plays. And tonight you can go pick a wide variety of single plays that dictated the outcome of the game.
And the heart of our team showed up, but we’ve got to make sure that we’re more consistent throughout and just capitalizing on those moments.
Q. In the second half, the defense gave you chances
to come back, but there was a stretch there where they
were really struggling. Was Clemson doing anything
offensively that you guys didn’t expect, or was it just
guys not making plays?
COACH NORVELL: You’ve got to give credit to them. They tried to implement some things in the game plan. They do a good job with their quarterback in the quarterback run game and creating an extra hat.
1 is a really good football player. He ran hard. I’ve got a lot of respect for him and the way that he battled throughout the course of the night.
We had a couple of mistakes that showed up on things that just with all the right intentions and things that we’ve worked, just for whatever reason in the moment, we just weren’t able to go out there and either make the play, or we had a miscommunication in what we were doing in the moment and those are things that are correctible, things we need to get fixed. But give credit to them for the job they did. They were efficient in what they did and how they played.
Q. This is three games in a row where the opening
drive the second half has resulted in a score. It’s been
obviously different ways. But how devastating or how
difficult can that be momentum-wise and just for you
guys to get back into the game when that’s
happening?
COACH NORVELL: Those times around halftime are critical. We talk about it. It’s huge. And to start off with a short field, our kickoff coverage unit has been phenomenal this year.
And you gotta give credit to them. They were able to create a seam. We had a chance there early. When they sparked the big return, that put them in great field position.
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