ACC fines Clemson, reprimands Dabo for calling out refs after Duke game
The ACC has publicly reprimanded Clemson coach Dabo Swinney and fined Clemson athletics $10,000 for Swinney’s public criticism of referees on Saturday.
The conference announced the decision in a statement Sunday, roughly 24 hours after Swinney ripped ACC referees for a crucial pass interference call that went against Clemson late in a 46-45 home loss against Duke.
Duke was trailing 45-38 and facing a fourth-and-10 at Clemson’s 18 with 49 seconds to go in the game. Duke quarterback Darian Mensah threw incomplete to receiver Que’Sean Brown, which would’ve ended the game, but officials flagged Clemson cornerback Avieon Terrell for pass interference on the play.
The 15-yard penalty gave Duke a first down at Clemson’s 3-yard line. The Blue Devils scored a go-ahead touchdown and two-point conversion to win the game late at Memorial Stadium and drop Clemson to 3-5 and 2-4 in the ACC.
Swinney said postgame it was “one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen in a game, ever in my entire coaching career, ever in a situation like that”
“I don’t want to make that a (big) deal, because we should’ve won the game. ... But you fight your butt off, and you scratch and you claw, and you get in a situation like that, and you have a call like that? Man, that’s just more salt in the wound.”
Later in his postgame news conference, Swinney was asked what he specifically saw on the play in question and started polling media members in the room: “What did you see? ... am I the only one that saw questionable?”
One media member said they thought the Duke receiver (Brown) made contact with the Clemson defensive back (Terrell), as opposed to vice versa.
“That’s what I thought the call was,” Swinney said. “I was shocked there wasn’t a flag, and then when I saw there was a flag, I thought, ‘Oh, good. They called OPI (offensive pass interference).’ So, it didn’t go our way. They (the refs) must’ve seen something I didn’t see.”
The ACC said Swinney had violated the ACC’s sportsmanship policy because his postgame comments were in “direct violation” of a portion of that policy, which says public criticism of officials is “not in the best interest” of college athletics and ACC representatives (namely, coaches and athletic directors) should avoid it.
The $10,000 “institutional fine” will go to the ACC’s postgraduate scholarship fund, which is standard procedure. Fines for violations of the conference’s new field-storming/court-storming policy also go to that scholarship fund.
The ACC said it would have no further comment on the matter.
Dabo pushes for ‘accountability’ for refs
But Swinney doubled down on his comments Sunday.
Speaking on his weekly Sunday teleconference, Swinney said he stands by his postgame comments and pushed for referees to be held more accountable.
“There’s a lot of accountability for coaches and a lot of accountability for players, but I don’t think there’s much for refs,” Swinney said. “... There should be some type of ability to challenge a call like that. It just was very, very frustrating.”
Swinney has spoken highly of ACC supervisor of football officials Al Riveron in the past, but he expressed frustration with college football officiating at large and said there should be “more accountability” across the board.
Should the ACC publicly disclose incorrect calls?
“I know my first year in ’09, they suspended four refs after the Georgia Tech game that Thursday night (for bad calls),” Swinney said. But that was a different era, different regime. I’m not gonna tell people how to run their shop, but I can have an opinion. Again, we’ve just gotta agree to disagree.”
This story was originally published November 2, 2025 at 5:06 PM.
