After Ohio State defeated Clemson 49-28 in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl on Friday, Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said it was clear that the best team won. But that wouldn’t change Swinney’s opinion of where he ranked the Buckeyes on his ballot in the USA Today Coaches Survey.
Swinney was criticized for placing Ohio State in 11th place in the playoff, a decision he said he made exclusively due to the Buckeyes playing only six games, and he said after Friday’s defeat that he doubts that it gave him much motivation.
“I don’t regret any of that, and research has nothing to do with motivation,” said Swinney. “Both teams were highly motivated to play.”
Swinney reiterated that his ranking was not intended to diminish Ohio State’s talent, but rather a decision not to place any team with less than nine games in its top 10.
After the game, Ohio State coach Ryan Day said his team was highly motivated to play, partly because of qualifying, but more so because of memories of the playoff defeat to Clemson last year.
“I don’t know if we are more excited about the chance to play for the national championship,” said Day, “or to avenge this defeat.”
Day said he had no hard feelings about Swinney’s qualification and that, after Friday’s game, Clemson’s coach told him to “go out and win everything”.
Swinney played down any notion that Ohio State added motivation to win, saying his team was prepared and focused, but it just didn’t perform well against a talented Buckeyes team.
“They are a great team,” said Swinney. “[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 the whole damn thing. But I don’t think anyone who hasn’t played at least nine games, in my poll, that I wouldn’t put them in the top ten. So I wouldn’t change that just because there was a chance we could play it. So I don’t regret it. The only thing I regret is obviously not doing a good enough job preparing my team. But I don’t regret any of that. “
A higher Swinney rating certainly wouldn’t have changed the result, said Ohio State’s Jeremy Ruckert, but it helped to make Friday’s dominant performance a little sweeter.
“Anything motivates you, be it what they say or what we say,” said Ruckert. “This is the biggest stage in college football. If that doesn’t motivate you, I don’t know what you’re doing here. We definitely heard what he was saying and used it as motivation, but the stage, the playoff platform and the chance to move on, that is the motivation itself. Now we just have to keep that energy working. “