Sammy Brown didn’t sugarcoat Clemson’s opening-night disaster.
After LSU rolled to a 51-10 win on Saturday night, with the Tigers outgained 644-145, Brown called the defeat “really, really embarrassing” and made it clear the size of the loss hit beyond the scoreboard.
“It's obviously really, really embarrassing,” Brown said. “Like I said, not only as a team, but as a man, to take a loss like that.”
For Brown, though, the bigger issue now is what Clemson does next. He pointed to the message Dabo Swinney delivered in the locker room and framed the night as a test of whether the Tigers let one ugly result snowball.
“You can't let a loss define who you are. You can't let it defeat you. You've gotta let it develop you,” echoing Dabo Swinney’s words in the locker room.
That idea carries real weight for Clemson after last season. The Tigers started 2025 with a 17-10 loss to LSU, then dropped three of their first four games on the way to a 7-6 finish. This one was much more lopsided, but Brown said the offseason work should help keep history from repeating itself.
“The work that we put in, physically and also mentally, has put us in position to not let this loss develop or define us like it did last year,” Brown said. “Because if you let one loss roll into two, three, and four losses. And then it's the season.”
There will be plenty to sort through on film. LSU ran for 309 yards, and Brown said Clemson hurt itself in multiple spots on defense.
“We let them get around us a couple of times. We couldn't set an edge. I think we busted a few coverages,” Brown said.
Even so, Brown kept coming back to the same point: the season is just beginning, and the response has to start immediately. Clemson has 11 regular-season games left, with ACC play still ahead.
“Respond.”
He said that standard applies to everybody in the locker room, from the quarterbacks to the younger players to the defensive leaders.
“When every thought in your mind is telling you, hang your head down and mope on it and let it defeat you, you have to be mentally tough enough to say, no, I'm gonna put my shoulders back, I'm gonna keep my chin up, and I'm gonna 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.
Clemson can’t change what happened in Baton Rouge. What it does next is the part that matters now.
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Clemson's Opener Turned Into A Nightmare For One Brutal Reason
The opener had already been pushed back by weather, and once LSU and Clemson finally got going, the night only got rougher from there. LSU rolled to a 51-10 win, piling up 644 yards while the Tigers struggled to find any rhythm on offense and were held under 100 yards until late in the game.
Sam Leavitt was a major part of the surge, producing both on the ground and through the air as LSU kept Clemson on its heels from the start. Jordan Ross added to the damage with an interception return for a score, turning a lopsided opener into the kind of result Clemson will be talking about for a while. [Read more 🡒]
Lane Kiffin Turns Clemson Opener Into The Kind Of Spectacle LSU Wanted
The Clemson opener drew a little extra star power on the LSU side, with Lane Kiffin showing up alongside two of the most recognizable Tigers supporters in Livvy Dunne and Theo Von. Dunne, the former LSU gymnast who helped the program win a national championship, and Von, the Louisiana native and LSU alum, both brought the kind of off-field attention that has become part of the modern college football experience.
For Clemson fans, the game itself was the main attraction, but LSUs presence added another layer to the night. Kiffin has crossed paths with both Dunne and Von before through social media and media appearances, which only made the sight of the three together feel like a familiar bit of theater, the kind of spectacle that can turn even an opener into a talking point beyond the scoreboard. [Read more 🡒]
Clemson Fans Just Got A Wild Viral Moment Before Kickoff
Before kickoff in LSUs season opener against Clemson, a video making the rounds online captured a woman in LSU attire being escorted by law enforcement through a crowd near Tiger Stadium. The footage quickly became one of the stranger early storylines of the night, but it left plenty of room for interpretation because it did not show what led to the escort in the first place.
Lane Kiffins debut as LSUs head coach then took center stage once the game got underway, and the Tigers from Baton Rouge finished the night with a win over Clemson. Still, for fans heading into and out of the stadium, the viral pregame scene added an unusual footnote to a matchup that already had plenty of attention before the first snap. [Read more 🡒]