By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort
CLEMSON — Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney says games like Saturday night’s 26-19 victory over Auburn in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic are great only “when you win them.”
“There is always a lot to learn from the opener whether you win it or lose it,” Swinney said during his weekly teleconference Sunday evening. “It’s not often that you play those types of games as your first game. You saw a few of them this weekend, but most of the teams were playing teams they probably should beat and kind of playing a lot of guys and all that kinds of stuff.
“But that certainly was not 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 with our personnel and with what they were going to do philosophy wise, I can’t say enough about our team and our staff for hanging in there and getting it done.”
Swinney was especially proud of his defense, which despite having its troubles early in stopping Auburn’s rushing attack, adjusted and limited the SEC’s Tigers to 50 total yards in the fourth quarter.
“I thought they held tough,” Swinney said. “They held them to field goals. We only gave up one touchdown, we creative some turnovers and we won the two-minute (drill). Those are real positive things.
“Even though we gave up some chunk yards along the way, we rallied, played defense and got a stop and held them to field goals. That gave us a chance to overcome some of our mistakes (on offense) that we had.”
By no means does Swinney think Saturday’s defensive effort was perfect. He says there are still a lot of things defensive coordinator Brent Venables and the defensive staff will be able to coach off of like pad level and making sure guys are not misaligned as they were in some cases.
“We prepared for a lot for the counter and they did not run the counter at all,” Swinney said. “They were more of an outside stretch type of team so we made some adjustments there and kind of settle in. We played very clean in the fourth quarter defensively, and that was really good to see.
“We got better as the game went along and in the fourth quarter I thought we were fresh and played hard. We had several guys step up and make some big plays.”
MVPs of the game. Swinney announced running back Andre Ellington, linebacker Stephone Anthony and kicker Chandler Catanzaro were the Most Valuable Players from the Auburn game.
Anthony finished the game with seven tackles and a pass breakup, while Catanzaro was 4-for-4 in field goal attempts. Ellington rushed for a career-high 231 yards and had runs of 68 and 45 yards in the victory.
Injury update. Swinney says the team came out of the Auburn game in relatively good health. Right tackle Gifford Timothy, who walked off the field with assistance on the next to last offensive play of the night for Clemson, will be okay.
Swinney says “they think it is scar tissue” that caused Timothy to go down. Swinney says his 6-foot-6, 310-pound tackle will be fine, though.
Who’s next? Clemson will host Ball State this Saturday for a 12:30 p.m. start in Death Valley. This will be the home opener for Clemson. The Tigers have not hosted a home game since Nov. 12 of last year, when they beat Wake Forest to clinch the ACC Atlantic Division title. (The game will be televised by the ACC Network so check your local listings for the channel in your area.)
Clemson has played five straight games—two true road games and three neutral site games—away from Memorial Stadium — the longest such streak in Clemson history.
“We will put this one to bed after we show the team the film tomorrow and then we will get ready for a good Ball State team,” Swinney said.