Clemson Not Focused on Revenge in Rematch With Notre Dame

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney says that while the Tigers might be playing in the ACC Championship Game against a Notre Dame team they lost to earlier in the season, that revenge is not a factor and his team is treating it like it's just the next game.

After losing a thriller in double-overtime to Notre Dame earlier in the season, some might assume that the third-ranked Tigers are out for revenge in this weekend's ACC Championship Game.

However, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney says that just isn't the case, and as always, his team is looking forward, not backwards. That they are treating this weekend's rematch for what it is, the next game on the schedule. 

"We just move on, we move on to the next game, always have," Swinney said. "Our guys, they know that this is a team that beat us the last time we played. We've played many teams over the years that maybe beat us and then we had to play them, even the next year or whatever. But it's just the next game."

Swinney says that wanting revenge is not what wins football games. That his players know that if they are to expect a different result this time around, they will have to better from an execution standpoint than they were in South Bend. 

"You can want to get revenge or whatever, but that doesn't fit gaps properly," Swinney said. "That doesn't catch the ball, that don't make a competitive play. You know, you've got to be locked in on just doing a job. Playing with great fundamentals, playing a great technique. But certainly want to learn from your mistakes, and you want to learn from your successes too."

The Clemson head coach says that his team would be taking the same approach even if they had come away with a win over the Irish back in November. Swinney says that it always comes down to who executes the best and in a game of this magnitude his team will have to be even more precise.

"Even if the game had gone our way and we had won the game, we still had a lot of mistakes," Swinney said. "We had plenty of opportunities to win the game but even if we win we had so much that we'd have to do better. It's really just about championship execution and you know, that's what's gonna win this game."