Swinney defends his players on racial accusations
By: will-vandervort November 27, 2016

Dabo Swinney was short and to the point in regards to accusations from South Carolina players that one of his own players made a racial slur, which led to the pre-game altercation between the two teams prior to No. 4 Clemson’s 56-7 win on Saturday.

“I was made aware of that. Obviously, everybody was talking about that and that is a shame,” Swinney said during his Sunday teleconference with the media to preview next week’s ACC Championship Game against No. 18 Virginia Tech.

Gamecocks’ linebacker Bryson Allen-Williams told South Carolina reporters that a Clemson player used “use the N-word.”

“They used the n-word, one of their offensive linemen. I don’t know which number,” Allen-Williams said in The (Columbia) State.com after the game. “We are going to get our get-back. We definitely have this game circled next year.”

Clemson safety Jadar Johnson, who was involved in the altercation, did not elaborate on the details of what caused the event before kickoff. However, he did say, “They were being silly and they made us mad.”

As for Swinney, he said he has addressed the issue with his team, and he believes what they told him.

“Absolutely, I asked my guys about that. To a man that is absolutely false. I believe my guys,” he said. “I know the character of my team. That’s really all there is to say about it.”

One South Carolina player’s tweet supports what Swinney said. After tweeting last night after the game about the racial slurs, USC wide receiver Terry Googer cleared up the confusion on Sunday, at least from his point of view, and pointed blame towards Clemson fans instead.

South Carolina defensive lineman Dante Sawyer used twitter to express his feelings on the subject as well after the game. However, he came back on twitter Sunday and expressed his respect for Clemson center Jay Guillermo, who obviously reached out to him since everything went down.