The Clemson football team lost 33-21 Saturday vs. Louisville, and at two different points late in the game, Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney decided to kick an extra point instead of attempting a 2-point play, which bewildered ESPN play-by-play commentator Bob Wischusen.
After a 3-yard Phil Mafah rushing touchdown cut Clemson's deficit from 19 to 13 with six minutes remaining, Wischusen immediately noted that the Tigers “obviously” had to go for two which, if successful, would have made it an 11-point game and allowed the Tigers to tie the game with a touchdown and field goal. However, Swinney decided to send out his kicker for the PAT, leading Wischusen to question Swinney's decisionmaking.
“You gotta go for two here. If you kick the extra point, you’re down by 12. This doesn’t make any sense,” Wischusen said [h/t Awful Announcing]. “You go for two here to try to cut the lead to 11 with six minutes to go. They’re kicking the extra point with six minutes remaining… But now you’re down by 12. I don’t understand in any way, shape, or form, the decision not to go for two points there.”
The PAT was successful, but, as Wischusen said, Clemson's 12-point deficit meant that the Tigers would have had to score at least two more touchdowns in six minutes.
After Louisville scored a touchdown, effectively ending any hopes of a Clemson comeback, the Tigers responded with another touchdown of their own. Swinney, when faced with while another decision down by 13, opted to again kick the extra point, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Wischusen.
“Again,” Wischusen said after the PAT, “when the only thing mathematically that makes sense is going for two, they kick the extra point. But I guess with 2:07 to go, it probably doesn't matter that much now.”
Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney explains why he didn't go for two vs. Louisville
After the 12-point loss, Swinney, whose Tigers now need some help to get to the ACC Championship Game, explained why his team decided against going for two on Saturday.
“[Swinney] says they didn't consider it,” Clemson beat writer Chapel Fowler wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “all their charts said kick it and go get an onsides kick afterward. ‘Anything can happen,' Dabo says.”
With the defeat, Clemson is now suddenly 6-2 on the season, 5-1 in the ACC, and in danger of missing the College Football Playoff altogether. Entering the weekend, the Tigers were among three teams undefeated in ACC play and on a clear path to the CFP. But now Clemson very likely needs to win its final two conference games and hope that Miami (FL) and SMU, both of which are 5-0 in the conference, to falter down the stretch if the Tigers want to make it to Charlotte.
Even with a 10-2 record and no ACC Championship Game berth, it is possible Clemson could be one of the 12 teams in the expanded CFP, although both losses were decisive (and the second at home) and the records of the teams the Tigers have defeated, none of whom were at the time or are currently ranked, combine to be 20-31.
Clemson will be on the road each of the next two weeks; the Tigers visit Blacksburg in a must-win game vs. Virginia Tech before traveling to Pittsburgh to face Pitt, which picked up its first loss of the season this weekend.
The Tigers finish up their season with home games vs. in-state teams The Citadel and South Carolina.
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