Why The Citadel told Dabo, Clemson ‘no thanks’ on offer to shorten game’s 2nd half
Down 49-0 to No. 1 Clemson at the half on Saturday, The Citadel football coach Brent Thompson was approached with a proposition. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney was willing to either shorten the quarters in the second half or implement a running clock to speed the thoroughly lopsided game along.
Such arrangements are rare but not unheard of in college football, especially in games between top-ranked teams and FCS squads like the Bulldogs. In 2016, Clemson and South Carolina State agreed to limit the third and fourth quarters to 12 minutes each instead of the usual 15 as the Tigers were already up 45-0.
Thompson, however, declined Swinney’s offer. When the ACC Network reported his decision during the game, it was met with some confusion on social media, but after the game, Thompson was adamant that it was something he would never do.
“We came here to play 60 minutes of football, and that’s what we were going to do,” Thompson said. “It didn’t matter whether I was gonna get beat by 100 or I was gonna get beat by 50, we were gonna stand in there and we were gonna play a full 60 minutes of football.
“I believe they wanted to shorten it to 10 minutes or a running clock. That’s not what we came here to do, that’s not what The Citadel’s about, that’s not what we’re about. I’m not gonna cave into that at all. I understand that that’s something that they can certainly offer to me, but it doesn’t matter to me. If I’m gonna get beat, I’m gonna get beat. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Had Thompson and the Bulldogs agreed to a shorter game, they would have been shaving minutes off an already reduced season — The Citadel is only playing four games this fall. The Bulldogs are members of the Southern Conference, which postponed all fall sports due to the coronavirus pandemic in August, but they forged forward with a schedule against a quartet of nonconference opponents.
The Bulldogs lost 27-6 to South Florida, coached by Clemson’s former offensive coordinator Jeff Scott, last Saturday. They host FCS Eastern Kentucky next weekend, then travel to Army on Oct. 10 to end their fall season.
As Clemson’s lone nonconference opponent of the season, The Citadel picked up a $450,000 check regardless for playing Saturday’s game.
And as it turned out, Saturday’s full-length second half was, at least on the scoreboard, a draw. Going deep into its bench to the third- and fourth-string units, Clemson did not score over the final 30 minutes, while The Citadel was also scoreless.
And that performance in the second half by the Bulldog defense, which included a fumble recovery and three three-and-outs, gave Thompson something positive to build on moving forward.
“Even when we were down a little bit and we let up a big play, we’re able to poke the ball out there and get a turnover. We just didn’t quit. It is the strength of our defense, the strength of our team right now, they’re older and more experienced guys. It’s kind of the way we expected them to play. ... We’re going to get better from this. We’re not going to nearly see this talent level and this level of competition, whether it’s in the spring or the next couple games. I think it bears well for our defense, if we can finally get our offense on track.”
This story was originally published September 19, 2020 at 7:57 PM.
