Clemson coach Dabo Swinney goes off on South Carolina fans tossing trash onto field

— -- COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Before the game got out of hand on the scoreboard, it got ugly in the stands as rivals Clemson and South Carolina faced off Saturday night.

Fans -- particularly in the student section in the north end zone -- threw bottles and other debris onto the field throughout much of the first half, reacting to Clemson touchdowns, officiating calls and some of their own team's struggles with a barrage of trash.

Some debris thrown in the direction of Clemson's players proved enough to set Tigers coach Dabo Swinney off. He railed to officials about the issue, becoming so animated that he was flagged for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at one point.

"I shouldn't have lost my poise and my cool. But that's an embarrassment," Swinney said at halftime. "These people are better than that. And it's just a few people here -- that's not a majority of these South Carolina people. That's an embarrassing situation right there. That's how somebody gets hurt."

The public address announcer at Williams-Brice Stadium twice made announcements imploring the crowd to stop throwing things onto the field, and by the time Clemson went up 27-0 in the third quarter, much of the energy in the stadium had subsided as the stands began to empty.