It wasn’t a good day for the Tigers

By Will Vandervort.

Though they could not make out what he was saying, reporters could hear Dabo Swinney fussing at his players following Wednesday’s situational scrimmage all the way across Frank Howard Field.

Swinney huddled his players around the 10-yard line on the east side of the stadium, while reporters waited for interviews under the WestZone for more than 45 minutes.

“I was disappointed,” Swinney said afterwards. “I thought we hit the wall today.”

Swinney was not just disappointed in the performance of his players. He was also disgusted with himself and the rest of the coaching staff for not having them ready to play.

“That is a reflection of myself,” he said. “It starts with me and stops with me.”

The Clemson coach said he was disappointed with his players’ attention to detail. There were way too many mistakes, like jumping offside, penalties, lining up wrong, throwing interceptions, dropping interceptions, dropping passes and putting the ball on the ground.

“If we played today, we would have our butts handed to us,” Swinney said. “It is not even close. There were way too many mistakes. It was just a disappointing day.

“We have had a good camp, but today I was very disappointed by the enormous amount of mistakes. You are repping three groups and it gets magnified a little bit, and I understand that, but the standard does not change when you change personnel. The expectation is the same.”

The silver lining is all of this can be fixed before the Tigers open the new season at No. 12 Georgia on Aug. 30.

“It’s way too many mistakes – things that we can control,” Swinney said. “Lining up offside defensively, offensive guys – receivers – covering each other up, illegal men downfield, jumping offside on third-and-one, just some really poor football in all areas.”

As for guys that made plays or stood out somewhat, cornerback Ryan Carter intercepted a pass and returned it 50 yards for a touchdown. Tight end Jordan Leggett had seven receptions and scored two touchdowns, while center Ryan Norton played the entire scrimmage.

Wayne Gallman, Carter’s teammate at Grayson High School in Georgia, had the longest run of the day with a 48-yard jaunt. Adam Humphries had a diving 40-yard reception in the two-minute drill.

Defensively, Vic Beasley had a big day with a pair of sacks and two other tackles for loss. Ben Boulware had a pair of sacks as well.

“We made a few mistakes that we can correct. There is nothing glaring that we can’t fix,” safety Robert Smith said.

Swinney feels the same way, and he says it starts with the coaches.

“I didn’t think our coaches were sharp today either. I’m really disappointed,” he said. “It is hard for me to expect more than the players than what the coaches give. Today was a really poor day from all of us coaches. It was a really poor day.

“So today is something hopefully we can all learn from, all of us, as coaches and players. We will reset, comeback tonight and learn from it and move forward. I’m glad we did not play today. If we played today this would have been a long, long, long day.”

Clemson will work again tonight and then Thursday will be a mental day as players will attend mostly meetings and walkthroughs. Swinney hopes Thursday’s light schedule will reenergize his squad.

“It’s a long camp,” Swinney sad. “There is always some place along the line in camp where you have some guys hit the wall at some point. Today, it seemed like everybody just kind of hit the wall.”

The Challenge moving forward for Clemson this next week is that it has to have the most focused meetings, walkthroughs and practices it has had in camp.

“We are going to have to be a physically and mentally tough football team if we are going to have the type of season we want to have,” Swinney said. “Tomorrow, as planned, we will have a lot of meetings and walkthroughs. It is going to be all teach-and-tempo type stuff. We will try to bring them back a little bit physically and have a good practice Friday morning and will go have fun a little bit Friday afternoon as a team with a team outing – get them away from here and then Saturday maybe we can have a more focused scrimmage.”