Q&A: Petrino after U of L's Clemson loss

Louisville coach Bobby Petrino called Saturday's 23-17 loss at Clemson "a tough game to lose" in his Q&A with reporters after the game.

The Cards had their chances, including a very good one in the final minute, but couldn't leave Death Valley with a knockout blow. Here were my takeaways from the game.

Here's the full transcript of his comments:

Opening statement: That was a tough game to lose. Our defense played extremely well. Offensively, we had a tough time getting things going. We continued to tell them on the sidelines and at halftime to keep competing and we'll try to find a way in the fourth quarter to get it going and get that fourth-quarter win. Unfortunately we just came up a little short. We just didn't make enough plays early in the game offensively to give us a chance to take a lead and have the lead.

I think it would have been a little different if we had a chance to lead, and that was the advantage they got. Both defenses played well. I hated to see us give up that punt return for a touchdown because he punted the ball pretty well all night and helped us with field position. But that was hard to overcome when you give up points on special teams.

Notebook:Soreness keeps DeVante Parker out of game

On the defense playing well but still trailing: I've been in a lot of games when you're down or you're behind and your defense is playing well. We just have to play better on offense.

On spiking the ball on third-and-goal: I thought we had the one touchdown play that we practiced and would be able to get it in on fourth down. The clock was running down, so we felt like we needed to spike it. You can always look back and say, 'Well, we could have thrown a fade,' or something like that, but you feel like if you have a chance to huddle and regroup, you'll be able to get it in there. They called a great play on second down, where it looked like we had a great chance to run the ball into the end zone, but they blitzed that inside gap and stopped it.

On Will Gardner: I thought he came in and gave us a lift. That first drive gave us a big play. Going to Eli (Rogers) down the middle really helped us and gave us a chance. He made some good decisions. We had one drive where we had an opportunity to go and take the lead and we weren't able to move the ball. That really hurt us. Then they drove it for a long time.

We're still a work in progress and we have to get it put together pretty quick. There's always some things that you like to see and say, 'Hey, we're getting closer.' We ran the ball pretty good at times and then they started putting nine guys down to the run, so we tried to take some shots down the field and missed on a couple. We thought that making the move to Will gave us the opportunity to throw the ball a little better.

Was that planned? No, it wasn't the plan. The plan was go in, Reggie (Bonnafon) has a great game and we win the game. We talked about it after the first series in the second half when he didn't look real comfortable out there and our communication wasn't going real well. We stuck with him for one more series, and then we said, 'Let's go with Will.'

On the defense: They're playing really well. They're doing a really good job. They're stopping the run. They're putting pressure on the quarterback and getting interceptions. They're making plays on fourth down. We're putting a lot of pressure on them. That's the problem. The offense is putting a lot of pressure on the defense. We had a lot of time of possession in the first half and i thought that really helped us, but we weren't able to do that in the second half.

On DeVante Parker: We made a decision -- the medical staff and he made a decision on Thursday that he wasn't ready to play.

On the last play: That's just how it goes on the last play of the game. You have to keep your feet and run out of it. We had a return route called for (Eli Rogers) where we had him dive in and come back outside, something we worked on a lot in practice. He does a great job of it, but he wasn't able to keep his feet.

On what he learned: I like their competitive spirit and the way we hung in there. We knew we were coming into a place where they've been playing extremely well and it'd be loud. They'd work hard to win. It's just a shame we came up a little bit short.