Dabo calls for change after Clemson-USC game ends with ‘dangerous’ on-field scene

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney thinks that everyone across college football can learn a lot from a weekend of rivalry games that ended in postgame scuffles.

That includes his program and its biggest rival, South Carolina.

The postgame scene after USC’s upset win over Clemson at Memorial Stadium was relatively minor compared to others that played out nationally — especially an all-out brawl between Michigan and Ohio State that featured pepper spray.

But Swinney says he and USC coach Shane Beamer will make prompt changes to stop the tense scene that unfolded at Death Valley from happening again.

Chief among them: No more planting flags at midfield. And that’s not exclusively a shot at South Carolina, Swinney said. His team has been guilty of it, too.

“Listen, it just shouldn’t happen,” Swinney said Sunday. “Shane and I, we’ll talk about that and make sure that doesn’t happen moving forward, because that’s dangerous, and people could have got hurt. I mean, it could’ve been bad.”

Speaking on a Zoom call for the 2024 ACC championship game, Swinney said he was “dead in the middle” of the postgame altercation that occurred after No. 15 USC upset No. 12 Clemson, 17-14, on the road in the teams’ annual rivalry game.

USC finished the season 9-3 (5-3 SEC) after the upset win. Clemson fell to 9-3 (7-1 ACC) but qualified for the ACC title game later on Saturday when Syracuse upset Miami, sending the Tigers to the league title game to play SMU.

The altercation started after Gamecocks players planted a USC flag at midfield on top Clemson’s tiger paw logo at the 50-yard line. A number of Clemson players took offense, and pushing and shoving among South Carolina and Clemson players, as well as some fans, went on for about five minutes.

“I was lucky to get out alive,” Swinney said. “It was dangerous. It was scary, and it was dangerous. We’ve gotta make sure that doesn’t happen anymore.”

South Carolina planting the flag was almost certainly in reaction to former Clemson linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr. planting a flag at midfield at Williams-Brice Stadium after the Tigers beat the Gamecocks there to end the 2023 season.

And Trotter’s gesture last year likely stemmed from USC players planting a flag at midfield at Memorial Stadium when South Carolina won there in 2022 to break a seven-game losing streak against Clemson.

Swinney said he and Beamer will make sure that isn’t an issue in future rivalry games after the Clemson-USC game ended with an altercation along with at least five other rivalry games (many of them featuring brawls in reaction to flag planting).

“That was something that happened here a couple years ago,” Swinney said. “And then last year we went down there and we had a player go plant a flag and I didn’t know about that ‘til after it happened. So, disappointed in that. And then again this year, that seems to be a thing.”

Flag planting has been a trend in college football in recent seasons ever 2017, when former Oklahoma and current NFL quarterback Baker Mayfield planted a flag at the 50 of “The Shoe” after the Sooners upset Ohio State in Columbus.

This year’s Ohio State-Michigan and UNC-N.C. State games both ended with widespread fighting after the road team in both instances (Michigan and N.C. State) won and attempted to plant its flag on its opponent’s midfield logo.

Police used pepper spray to end the Ohio State-Michigan fight, a controversial decision that’s drawn scrutiny since players were among those sprayed. The UNC-N.C. State game also ended with a major brawl, while there were also scuffles during the Florida-Florida State, Arizona-Arizona State and Alabama-Auburn games.

And Texas coach Steve Sarkisian went out of his way to prevent Texas from planting a flag after a road win at Texas A&M late Saturday night, a move that likely prevented another altercation.

All of this happened on a single Saturday.

“I promise you, we win down there next year, or whenever we win there again, that’s not something we’re going to do,” Swinney said, referencing Clemson’s game at South Carolina next season. “I’m going to make sure of that.”

Postgame altercation ‘just can’t happen’

Swinney emphasized that Clemson can’t be a “hypocrite” because its players (specifically Trotter) contributed to the flag-planting cycle last year.

The postgame altercation at Clemson on Saturday was also escalated because the university allows anyone in the stadium to access the field postgame in a longtime tradition known as Gathering at the Paw, which dates back decades.

In the instance of a road team winning — especially an in-state rival such as South Carolina — that can lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of people cramming onto the field and tense player-fan interactions in tightly squeezed areas.

Although it doesn’t appear that anyone was injured during Saturday’s postgame altercation, and no punches were thrown, various social media videos captured showed Clemson and USC players cursing at and shoving each other.

Other clips showed Tigers defensive tackle Tré Williams making contact with a South Carolina fan and moving him out of the way during a large shoving match between the two teams; and Tigers defensive end Zaire Patterson hitting a cellphone out of a USC fan’s hand as the fan recorded and taunted him.

The midfield scrum lasted long enough that, seven minutes after the game ended, Memorial Stadium’s public address announcer requested over the loudspeakers for all Clemson football players to “please return to the locker room.” Clemson has not made that sort of announcement at any other point this season for a home game.

“You win? Hey, you’ve got bragging rights,” Swinney said. “You certainly want to celebrate that and be excited about that, as you should. But it just can’t happen.”

Clemson and South Carolina are scheduled to meet next in Columbia in 2025.

“It could have really gotten out of hand yesterday, because there’s a lot of people down there,” Swinney said. “So I think we can all be better there, and we’re in that, too. ... Let’s celebrate with our team and shake hands and let’s move on.”