Clemson walked out of Tiger Stadium with a 51-10 loss to LSU, and Sammy Brown didn’t try to soften it.
The senior linebacker called the opener “embarrassing,” a blunt assessment that fit the mood after a 41-point blowout in Baton Rouge. For a Clemson team that has now dropped four straight season openers, this one landed especially hard.
Brown’s message afterward was less about the score and more about what comes next. He said the offseason work, both physical and mental, was supposed to prepare Clemson for a moment like this - one where a bad loss could either linger or get pushed aside before it snowballed.
“The work that we put in this offseason, you know, physically and also mentally, has put us in a position to not let this loss develop or define us like it did last year,” Brown said. “Because, you know, you let one loss roll into two, three, and four losses.”
That line pointed straight back to what Brown had already admitted at ACC Kickoff, when he said last year’s team wasn’t as mentally tough as it needed to be at times. He specifically pointed to the week between Georgia Tech and Syracuse as a stretch when the group was shocked by adversity. Syracuse then beat Clemson 34-21 in a game that helped set the tone for the 2025 season.
Now Brown is trying to make sure this year doesn’t follow the same path.
Standing in a quiet locker room after the LSU loss, he said the challenge was obvious: keep the team from folding under the weight of the result. In his view, the response has to start with pride and with refusing to let one game spill into the next.
“I mean, when every thought in your mind is telling you, like, hang your head down and mope on it and let it defeat you have to be mentally tough enough to say, no, I'm going to put my shoulders back, I'm going to keep my chin up, and I'm going to walk out of this locker room with some pride about myself, who I am as a man, and who we are as a team,” Brown said. “So, I think that's kind of the message that we need to say to them.”
Brown said the loss is “obviously really, really embarrassing,” and he tied that feeling not just to Clemson’s identity as a team, but to the way the players carry themselves.
“Not only as a team but as a man to take a loss like that. You can't let a loss define who you are as a man.
You can't let it defeat you. You've got to let it develop you.
” Brown said. “So, I think with the guys that we have on this team and the guys that we have in that locker room, I think we're going to be able to let this loss develop us.”
For Clemson, the damage is already done. For Brown, the real work is making sure it doesn’t spread.
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The deal also spells out the usual logistics that come with bringing a road team to town, including ticket allotments and access for Georgia Southerns team and staff. It is the sort of behind-the-scenes bookkeeping that rarely gets much attention on game day, even though it helps shape the business side of a September Saturday in Death Valley. [Read more 🡒]