Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney held his Sunday teleconference where he looked back at the win over Virginia Tech and ahead to a Thursday night showdown with Wake Forest.
Opening Statement
Again, quickly let me reiterate what a great win that was yesterday. I am proud of our guys. Virginia Tech has been a team that has been pretty dominant in this conference and very consistent even on the road. It was a very big win for us.
I am proud of them for tying the record at home for wins in a row. We did a lot of good things. It was our best performance of the year defensively. We were dominant in the second half. We got some stops. We had a lot of three-and-outs in the game. The fourth and one early in the game was huge. The turnovers and we were very good in third down in the second half. We got some sacks but also some quarterback pressures. I thought that was real key in the game for us.
Even with that there were still a lot of mistakes. The big thing that is hurting us defensively right now is just a few plays. Just a few plays that are things that we need to just continue to improve upon. It is always easier to improve on those things coming off a win than a loss.
Offensively it was probably our worst day. We had too many negative plays and sacks. We had a lot of plays there that we missed. The three-and-outs kept our play count down. The third downs was very average. We did not play our best game up front. But we did manage to set a Clemson record with six games of 35 points or more. We made just enough plays to put the game away. Even though it wasn’t our best day the last drive was really good to see them fighting all the way until the end.
On special teams I thought we were better in the return game. We got a big turnover which was a big momentum play in the game.
We are quickly putting that one behind us and moving on to this next one which is going to be another challenge. Wake Forest is always a challenge for us. We have to embrace this opportunity that we have to get a chance to not have to wait a week to go play again in front of a national audience. We will see if we can continue to handle our business and take advantage of our opportunities.
As I told the team today our best football has to be in front of us, not behind us. We have to continue to improve as a team and play the price that it takes to win.
Injury Update
Injury wise typically on Sunday we don’t practice and we will here in just a little bit. We are in pretty decent shape. Probably the two right now is Darius Robinson is definitely out. When they initially got with me after the game they didn’t think it was fractured but sometimes you can’t really tell until you get an additional read but as it turns out he did have a little fracture in his ankle area. He is going to have surgery on Tuesday. They are hopeful that he will be back for the bowl game. I am disappointed to lose Darius obviously and then we have some guys kind of banged up but none of them that I see missing the game.
We will try to nurse them along today and hopefully be a little bit better tomorrow. We will get some of the soreness out of them tonight but for the most part we are in pretty good shape.
Players of the Game
Offense – Dalton Freeman
Defense – Jonathan Meeks
Special Teams – Tony Steward
Question – What is your schedule for this week?
Dabo – Well it is something that we have been working on for a while but they came in here at 4:15 today and we had a team meeting, our normal kind of Monday type team meeting. Then we broke for dinner at 5. They are in segment meetings right now until about 7:10 and we will flex at 7:30.
We will have a light practice tonight, kind of a normal Monday practice. We will be in shells tomorrow and put the pads on tomorrow and Tuesday. We won’t practice as long as we normally would tomorrow and Tuesday. Because again it is short week and you have to get them fresh and ready to go again. We will travel up to Winston-Salem on Wednesday.
Question – Who else do you expect to step-up at corner now with Darius out?
Dabo – Definitely Brewer, Garry Peters and Breeland. That will be our primary three-man rotation. The guy that we are really going to challenge is Cortez Davis. Outside of that Dante Stewart is a young man that gives us all he has got and works hard and knows what he is doing. If we had some other type of injury we would probably have to either put Blanks over there or take a guy like Adam Humphries and cross-train him or something like that just to give us a chance to have another guy out there because we are incredibly thin at corner with Darius out and Martin Jenkins out.
We will have an emergency plan but as long as those three guys and Cortez are healthy I think we will be in good shape.
Cortez is a guy that we have to challenge and he has been making improvement. He hasn’t gotten a lot of opportunities. He has been playing on special teams but he is getting better. Obviously now his reps are going to go way up. Hopefully his progress will continue to come along.
Question – Over the last year and a half has Humphries seen any work at all on the defensive side?
Dabo – No, that is just a total emergency. He is critical to what we do offensively and is a very good player. We don’t have a lot of guys there either especially for what we do. We have six guys that are playing.
The thing about Adam is he is very smart. He plays a lot of special teams so he is used to tackling. But as I said it would just be an emergency situation at this point.
Question – How rewarding was it to see the defense come along and join the party yesterday?
Dabo – It was great. Our defense has steadily improved all year. Heck they have been a big part. It is not like we have just been winning with one phase of the game. They have maybe not been perfect but they have made plenty of plays to help us win along the way. Up at Boston and against Georgia Tech they have gotten better especially in the last three games.
Again I thought they had their best day yesterday. Hopefully they are continuing to grow in their confidence. Our guys up front are just getting better and better and better. We have a pretty good rotation. Guys are learning how to play the game. I think it is real positive what I am seeing right now.
We aren’t Alabama yet but we have a chance to be a much improved defense when this thing is all said and done this year with a lot of guys coming back for next year.
Question – How did you critique Spencer Shuey’s first start?
Dabo – He played great. He played really, really well. He was in on a bunch of tackles and he showed up in special teams too. He is just a football player and in great shape. He just really understands what we are doing and he puts himself in great position to make plays.