After Ohio State defeated Clemson 49-28 in the Allstate Sugar Bowl college playoff semifinal on Friday, Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said it was clear the better team had won. But that wouldn’t change Swinney’s view of where he ranked the Buckeyes on his ballot in the US Today Coaches Poll.
Swinney criticized Ohio for entering 11th place in the playoffs, a decision he said he made exclusively because the Buckeyes played just six games and said, after losing Friday, that he doubts that he would have motivated much.
“I don’t regret any of this, and the polls have nothing to do with motivation,” Swinney said. “Both teams were extremely motivated to play.”
Swinney reiterated that his ranking was not meant to diminish Ohio State’s talent, but rather a decision not to put any team with less than nine games in the top 10.
After the game, Ohio State coach Ryan Day said his team was extremely motivated to play, partly because of the standings, but more because of memories of losing the playoff to Clemson last year.
“I don’t know if we’re more excited about the chance to play for a national championship,” Day said, “or the revenge for this loss.”
Day said he had no heavy feelings about Swinney’s standings and that after Friday’s game, Clemson’s coach told him to “go out and win everything.”
Swinney downplayed any idea that Ohio State added motivation to win, saying his team was prepared and focused, but simply did not perform well against a talented Buckeyes team.
“They’re a great team,” Swinney said. “[The ranking] it had nothing to do with the state of Ohio. I said they were good enough to beat us, good enough to win everything. But I didn’t think that anyone who didn’t play at least nine games, in my poll, that I wouldn’t put them in the top 10. So I’m not going to change that just because there’s a chance we could play them. So I have no regrets about that. The only thing I regret is obviously not doing a good enough job preparing my team. But I don’t regret it at all. “
A higher ranking of Swinney would certainly not have changed the result, said Jeremy Ruckert of Ohio State, but it helped improve Friday’s dominant performance.
“Anything motivates you, whether it’s what they say or what we say,” Ruckert said. “This is the biggest stage in college football. If that doesn’t motivate you, I don’t know what you’re doing here. I certainly heard what he was saying and I used it as motivation, but the stage, the playoff platform and the chance to go further, this is the motivation itself. Now we just have to maintain that energy. “