CLEMSON — Despite Clemson football leading by 16 points with 2:08 left in the game, coach Dabo Swinney reentered his starting offense.

The No. 9 Tigers (6-1, 5-0 ACC) defeated Virginia 48-31 on Saturday at Memorial Stadium, but the Cavaliers made the game too close for comfort for Swinney. Virginia (4-3, 2-2) scored 15 points in two of its first three fourth-quarter possessions to cut its deficit and nearly recovered an onside kick.

Clemson's second-string offense only had one possession, which led to a quick three-and-out. Seeing this, Swinney redeployed his offensive starters on the next drive, and Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik found freshman wide receiver T.J. Moore for a 34-yard touchdown.

"To (Virginia's) credit, I’m trying to call the dogs out,” Swinney said. “That is what I told those guys. When we put the subs in, they don’t call timeout and say, 'Oh they put the backups in, let’s put our backups in.'"

This marked the first time Swinney faced his former assistant Tony Elliott, now the Virginia coach. When Swinney became Clemson's wide receivers coach in 2003, Elliot was in his senior season as a wideout.

Swinney and Elliott's relationship blossomed when Swinney hired Elliott as the Tigers' running backs coach in 2011. Elliott climbed the ranks to become the team's co-offensive coordinator from 2014-20, then full-time offensive coordinator in 2021 before taking the Cavaliers' job in 2022.

Despite being down 38-10 in the fourth quarter Saturday, Elliott's team fought. It put together two quick scoring drives: a five-play, 75-yard possession that took under two minutes and a nine-play, 65-yard possession that was under three minutes.

"That's what I was taught by the group on the other side here is, man, you never stop playing ," Elliott said. "It doesn't matter what the score is."

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Virginia responded after Klubnik's score with a 75-yard touchdown on the first play of the drive. Cavaliers backup quarterback Tony Muskett found wide receiver Ethan Davies, who got open after a double move on Clemson cornerback Branden Strozier, to help them score 21 points in the fourth quarter.

Swinney was impressed with Elliott and Virginia's moxie to keep fighting.

“That was a good call,” Swinney said. “He went at our young corner out there and took a little shot and I saw him smiling over there. So I tipped my hat to him. They kept playing.”

Derrian Carter covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at dcarter@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DerrianCarter00

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson football: Why Dabo Swinney put starters back in vs Virginia