Dabo Swinney blasts ACC officials for "One of the worst calls I've ever seen"

After he had erupted on officials for a dubious late-game call, and after he previously had erupted on the sidelines as he beseeched his players to rise to the moment, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney pointed the blame at his Tigers' secondary Saturday afternoon.

At home, and again favored by oddsmakers, Clemson instead found a way to lose, 46-45, to Manny Diaz's visiting Duke Blue Devils. Make that 378 days -- and counting -- since the Tigers last beat a Power Conference team in its home stadium. 

In his postgame press conference, a scene of defeat for a sixth-straight time against a Power Conference foe at home, Swinney pulled a page from Duke's offensive playbook: he targeted the Clemson pass defense.

"At the end of the day, just horrible, horrible pass defense," Swinney told reporters. "Just not acceptable. Simple as that."

Swinney also bemoaned that much of what the Tigers failed at "not doing what we're supposed to do. And that's on coaching."

Though Clemson's own offense gashed the Blue Devils for 560 yards, 28 first downs and almost 35 minutes of possession, its defense yielded a 361-yard, four-touchdown passing performance to Duke quarterback Darian Mensah.

Mensah's two-point conversion pass to Sahmir Hagans proved the game-winning and capped Duke's 11-play, 94-yard game-winning possession that melted four minutes, 39 seconds off the game clock.

It appeared that Clemson had secured a win with a late-game defensive stop on a fourth-down pass, but the ACC officiating crew flagged the Tigers for defensive pass interference.

“I don’t know what to say about the last call," said Swinney, who did indeed still find something to say about the call. "It shouldn’t come down to that. That’s one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen in a game ever, in my entire coaching career. 

"I don’t want to make that a deal because it was one thing. You have a call like that? Man. That’s just more salt in the wound. But that’s not why we lost. We had plenty of opportunities to win.”

Broken record. Clemson has manufactured methods of losing games during this season of unprecedented struggle under Swinney. The home loss to Duke is Clemson's first in almost five decades. The Tigers have lost at home by allowing just 17 points to LSU in the season-opening contest and only 24 to still-unbeaten Georgia Tech.

Yet, it also has allowed 34 to Syracuse, 35 to SMU and now 46 to Duke, which managed only 18 points in its loss last week to Georgia Tech.

Now, the Tigers are a four-loss team after being preseason top-10.