Dabo Swinney went into full denial mode after Miami left Clemson laying in Death Valley

The delusion is high with Dabo Swinney. To the eyes, it looked like the Miami Hurricanes completely dominated the Clemson Tigers in a 41-13 win in Week 5.

Miami scored on its first offensive play of the game, a 61-yard touchdown pass from Darian Mensah to Cooper Barkate, and the Hurricanes continued to build from there and physically dominated Clemson on both sides of the ball. The box score tells much of the story of the game. Miami held a big total yards advantage until late, which included churning out 192 yards on the ground (averaging 5.5 yards per carry). 

But Swinney is never one to avoid hyperbole and try to convince you that a game was closer than the score would indicate.

Interesting, but it gets better. Swinney goes on to suggest that Miami only got 31 points because, apparently, JJ Dunnigan's pick-six and the field goal the Hurricanes got on a short field after another defensive turnover shouldn't count. I mean, I guess it's funny that a two-time national championship coach is reverting to the sort of mental gymnastics that a preschooler would quickly catch on to, but maybe that's indicative of the respect he has for the Clemson fanbase.

Sorry Dabo, Miami scored 41 points and Clemson is irrelevant

I've heard these sorts of ridiculous media scrums with other coaches, and it's simply loser talk. Only losers talk about how close they were in a game where they got blown out. Sure, if Miami doesn't score on the first play or score a touchdown on an 8-minute drive in the third quarter or Dunnigan doesn't get the pick and return it to the house, the Hurricanes would only have 20 points instead of 41. And they would've still won. 

Miami also had a touchdown taken back if anyone forgot. It was a beautiful hookup from Mensah to Malachi Toney that was nullified by an illegal shift. It happens.

Was that frustrating at the moment? Sure. But it didn't stop Miami from getting the job done because the Hurricanes have a winning mentality, and they have a coach that doesn't play the "what if" game, which is something Swinney has lowered himself to doing now because Clemson can't compete against good teams.

At the end of the day, Miami is moving forward and starting to think about winning its first ACC Championship in football and what the CFP 12-team bracket might look like, and Swinney is talking about how motivated his players were when they were down 24-6 at the start of the fourth quarter. And I give Clemson credit. Those kids played hard from start to finish, but there were no amount of 'what ifs' that were going to stop the Hurricanes from blowing out the Tigers in Death Valley.

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