Dabo Swinney: Florida State Used COVID-19 As ‘Excuse’ to Cancel Clemson Game

Florida State officials decided to cancel their game against Clemson on Saturday three hours before kickoff with the Tigers already in Tallahassee, after learning that a Clemson backup offensive lineman had tested positive for COVID-19. The offensive lineman had practiced earlier in the week when he had symptoms, but had not tested positive, and he traveled with the team.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney clearly does not believe that this was enough of a concern for Florida State to cancel the game because he has gone off on Florida State today:

Dabo Swinney is really upset: "This game was not canceled because of COVID. COVID was just an excuse to cancel the game." Says FSU administration forfeited the game. If FSU wants to play Clemson, they can home to Death Valley, he says. Or they can pay for Clemson's travel.

— Grace Raynor (@gmraynor) November 22, 2020

Dabo: "This game was not canceled because of COVID. COVID was just an excuse to cancel the game. … To me, the Florida State administration forfeited the game."

— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) November 22, 2020

Dabo Swinney asked about going back to FSU: “It’s an awful lot of money. We were there and we met the standard to play. That’s $300,000 just gone out the window. That’s a question for Dan (Radakovich)."

— Clemson Sports (@ClemsonSports) November 22, 2020

Dabo Swinney on if FSU was concerned about COVID-19: “If that was their worry, they shouldn’t have even played this season."

— Clemson Sports (@ClemsonSports) November 22, 2020

Dabo Swinney, “The standard to cancel a game was not met. I was on every committee call for months since March. The only thing we talked about in canceling games was not having enough guys or seven offensive lineman."

— Clemson Sports (@ClemsonSports) November 22, 2020

We will update this story if/when video becomes available.