Swinney refutes SEC commish alleging ACC protected Clemson, Notre Dame

(ACC photo)

by Brandon Rink - Staff Writer - Sun Dec 13 21:20:46 GMT-04:00 2020

No. 2 Notre Dame and No. 3 Clemson will play for an ACC title Saturday in Charlotte and there's a decent chance both could end up in the College Football Playoff if the Tigers come out on top.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey intimated over a week ago that ACC reconfigured its schedule to do just that -- knocking a rescheduled game off of Notre Dame's schedule and not making Clemson reschedule its matchup with Florida State last weekend.

Swinney got a chance to respond to that idea on Sunday and he doesn't agree -- also throwing another reference at Ohio State's schedule in.

"If the ACC was really trying to protect Clemson and Notre Dame, why would we even play the game this week?" Swinney said. "If six wins can get you in the Playoff -- shouldn’t nine get you there? Shouldn’t ten get you there? So if the ACC was really trying to protect Clemson/Notre Dame -- we wouldn’t even try to play this game. That’s not what we’re about. We’re going to crown a worthy champion.

"It’s going to be an awesome game. It’s going to be awesome. I would have loved to have played this past weekend. I had no problem with that. I didn’t have anything to do with that decision. We wanted to play when we were down in Tallahassee. We were about to get on a bus and go play. Things happen -- just like have happened all over the place. Things you can’t control. All you can do is control whatever goes on."

Sankey made his comments to CBS Sports and said he was surprised by the ACC's call to curtail its league season to nine games for contenders at the time in Clemson, Notre Dame and Miami.

"I was surprised to see the announcement," Sankey said. "It begs one question: If their two most highly ranked teams were, for instance, (ranked) five and six in the CFP Rankings, would this decision have been made?...

"We could have played an eight-game conference schedule," Sankey continued, "but we understood looking at the season we would assist ourselves in this postseason evaluation by adding quality games. SEC games are quality games. We're still on that path.

"We felt that others were on that path, too. We understood back in August and September people made decisions to not play, yet made decisions based on clear understandings of the expectations. One of those expectations is about the number of games played."

The ACC announced on Sunday that the game will be a no-contest if canceled for COVID-19 protocol by either team and the Fighting Irish would be the league champ after a 9-0 ACC run.

Swinney says both Clemson and Notre Dame are committed to playing Saturday, however.

"They (the ACC) made this decision and we’ve played ten games and Notre Dame has played ten games," he said. "We’re excited to go play a championship and crown a worthy champion of this league and go from there…(To not play the game) -- that’s not what Notre Dame wants. That’s not what we want. We want to play the game. There you go."