Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney held his Sunday teleconference where he reviewed Saturday night’s win over Auburn and looked ahead to Ball State.

Opening Statement

I am just really proud of our guys and our staff.  It was a great win.  The difficulty of the opener in itself was a big challenge.  And then you add the two new coordinators and I think the staff did a good job of making adjustments as the game went to help us have a chance to win in the fourth quarter.  We got some things cleaned up and I am just really proud of our team and our coaches for just gutting it out.  There was great poise.  We certainly made enough mistakes along the way.  The guys never lost focus.  They hung in there and kept playing and we were able to pull it out in the fourth quarter.

As we move into this week we have a big challenge ahead.  We are just turning the page to Ball State.  They put up a bunch of offense last week so  we will quickly turn the page and bring the guys in in the morning.  We will put this film to bed with them and then tomorrow afternoon with the players and move on to the next one.

It is good to have some tape to learn from.  I think we really have a chance to improve if we continue to focus on our formula for success regardless of who the opponent is or where we play or any of that stuff.  We just need to stay dialed in on what we need to do to get better as a team.  I think we have a chance.

Injury Update

Injury wise we are in good shape.  Giff checked out okay.  Everybody else should be all at practice and ready to go.  From that standpoint we are really, really encouraged.

Players of the Game

Andre Ellington was the player of the game for the offense.  He played a really tremendous game as did our offensive line as did some other guys but Andre was special.

Defensively Stephon Anthony was the player of the game.

Our special team’s player of the game was Catanzaro.  He hit four big field goals and was ready to answer the bell every time we called on him.  I am really proud of the job he did.

Question – The first goal is to win the opener but how much more did it mean to the team to win such a big game in an atmosphere like that?

Dabo – It was huge.  Those types of games are great when you win them.  There is always a lot to learn from the opener whether you win or lose it.  But it is not often that you play those types of games as your opener.  You saw a few of them this weekend but most of the teams were playing teams that they probably should beat and play a lot of guys and all of that kind of stuff.

That certainly wasn’t the case for us.  So when you get challenged right out of the gate like that and your guys are able to respond, especially with as many unknowns as we were facing both with our personnel and with what they were going to do philosophy wise.  I can’t say enough good things about our team and our staff for getting it done.

Question – What did you like from your defense and the way Brent had them playing yesterday?

Dabo – Well I thought they held tough.  We held them to field goals.  We only gave up one touchdown.  We created some turnovers.  We won the two minute.  Those are real positive things.  We do know we gave up some chunk yards along the way but we rallied and played defense and got a stop and held them to field goals and not touchdowns.  That gave us a chance to overcome some of our mistakes that we had.  So a lot of good things.  They fought hard.  We were kind of our own worst enemy over there at times.  We had a few guys that misaligned and we needed a middle field player one time and didn’t have that.  But a lot of things we can coach off of like pad level.  We prepared for a lot of counter but they didn’t run the counter at all.  They were much more of an outside stretch type of team.  So we made some adjustments there and kind of settled in.  We really played very clean in the fourth quarter defensively.  That was really good to see.  We got better as we went and in the fourth quarter I thought we were fresh and played hard.  We had several guys step up and make some big plays for us.

Question – What was the injury to Timothy?

Dabo – They think it was just some scar tissue.

Question – What does it mean not only for Clemson but for the ACC to go out and beat an SEC opponent like that?

Dabo – Well it is great.  As long as we can go on and have a great year and then maybe it will mean something.  It was just one night and one game and we were the better team last night.  That is really all there is to it.  Hopefully when the end of the year comes around we can be a team that can maybe bring some national recognition to the ACC but we are a long way away from that right now.  We are just 1-0 and accomplished the first goal.  It was really good that we won it but it doesn’t mean anything if we go and lay an egg this week.

Question – Talk about the decision to go for three in the final two minutes instead of going for the touchdown?

Dabo – Well that was a pretty easy decision based on our practice.  We have worked a lot of two minute in practice.  It is very difficult to go the distance against a good defense with no timeouts and have to score a touchdown.  The decision was if we take the three points a touchdown doesn’t even beat us.  All it does is tie us.  As opposed to if you go for it and punch it in it is over right there, but if you don’t get it you give them a lot of momentum and now a touchdown beats you.

Question – How key was Tajh’s performance?  How much has he grown up and improved on the performance we saw last year?

Dabo – Well it was just a great game.  He had some great games last year but just his ability to make plays with his legs last night was the key.  That was an area where going back to last year we really challenged him.  He certainly responded in a big way.  He still made enough mistakes where we have a good opportunity to coach him this week.  There were some things like we could have avoided some pre snap stuff that he has to clean up.  He missed out on some big plays, but certainly he had some drops on the other end as well.  But his ability to find the rush lanes and to take those yards as opposed to taking sacks or just trying to force a ball which are some of the things that we saw him do at the end of last year.  That was a real positive sign.  He did a good job of taking care of the ball last night.  It was just a good start for him.

Question – Any thoughts on the equipment with the helmet problems yesterday?

Dabo – No, no

Question – What does the rushing performance in the fourth quarter tell you about the mental and physical approach of your offensive line?

Dabo – It was tremendous.  I mean you rush the ball for 320 yards against a very good football team in a tough environment.  And again we have three new starters in that offensive line, one of them playing as an OL for the first time in his life and two other ones that have hardly taken any snaps at all.

They went the distance.  We really liked how they were playing once we got going.  They weren’t perfect.  There are some things we have to do better but I really felt like they responded well.  Then in the fourth quarter they took the game over.  We had two long drives to seal the deal including the one at the end there that was ten plays.  And really it wasn’t anything fancy.  It was just the nuts and bolts of our offense.  Those guys made it happen and they did an excellent job at the point of attack.  There are some protection things we can clean up.  There were four sacks but two of them were on Tajh.  The other two were some communication things that we have to get corrected.  One of them was with the back.  But I am really pleased with them for the first game.

Hopefully we can play a few more guys and develop some more depth.  I think we have two or three other guys that are going to be able to help us as we move along.

Question – How would you evaluate D.J. Reader and Travis Blanks in their first action?

Dabo – Very solid.  Those are two guys that you are going to see play a bunch as we move throughout the year.  It is a big stage for two rookies to run under.  Both of those guys are very mature young men and responded well.  I look forward to continuing to bring them along.  I think both of them are really going to be great players for us this year.