Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney had a teleconference Monday to review the win over Louisville and look ahead to the game with Notre Dame. Here is a transcript from the teleconference:
Opening Statement
I am really proud of our team. It was a great win and the more I watched football this weekend, the better it became. It is a big win, especially early in the season with the perseverance, the mental toughness, the heart that our team displayed. I am really proud of them.
I think we were 1-8 on Thursday nights before I got this job and now we are 5-1. That just shows you it is very to win, especially on Thursday nights, especially when you are playing a really good team like Louisville. They are a good team. They are going to win a bunch of games and they are going to upset somebody, just wait.
We are 3-0 in September and that is where we wanted to be. I am proud of our guys. I really am. I think we have a great opportunity in front of us.
The goal was to win and we got that done. We have a lot to fix. We have a lot we need to improve upon. We are not a finished product. I didn’t expect to be. If we will stay focused on the things that we talk about I think we have a chance to keep getting better. Again it is all out there for us. Everybody just taking ownership, learning and doing a better job in some areas. If we do that I think we have an excellent chance.
One of the things I told the team was we won the national championship my senior year at Alabama and in September we weren’t a very good team. We beat La. Tech 13-7 and we were down late in the game. The only reason we won the game was David Palmer took a punt return back and we win the game 13-7. Then we end up in the National Championship beating Miami 34-13. We got better as the year went and that is what I want to see our team do. I want to see our team keep improving and learning from our mistakes. We have a lot of young guys that are getting coached hard. That is kind of where we are.
Offensively I loved the balance that we had. To be able to rush the ball for 200 and something yards. The other thing I was really pleased with is we only had eight negative yards. We did a good job of eliminating negative plays. We did have one sack. We were patient. I think Louisville’s philosophy was they weren’t going to outscore us so let’s see if Clemson will be patient. Let’s see if Clemson will run the ball. Let’s see if they will stick with taking things that were there. Let’s see if they can put some drives together. I was really pleased with how we were able to do that. We stayed patient. We took what was there. There were not a lot of opportunities down field. We did create a couple of explosive touchdowns.
And then Wayne Gallman with 135 yards rushing. Deshaun averaged 4.5 yards per rush. I am pleased with what we got done offensively. We missed two plays that I think we could have put the game away with. The angle rout that we didn’t make and finally they brought a blitz and we were ready for it. Leggett was wide open and huge play and Deshaun got a little antsy and had poor footwork and made a poor throw there. And then the penalties that was the other disappointment. The two turnovers, the first one was a great throw. It was just a great play by their kid. The ball was either going to be caught by Leggett or incomplete if our receiver does his job. The receiver was really the biggest problem on the play. That is what we call an inside 9 and you have to go through the DB and our receiver broke way too short and that gives the corner eyes in the backfield and he was able to peel off and go hit Leggett. So Leggett wasn’t able to go make the play on the ball. The other interception was a poor throw. He kind of left it outside but you know that’s ball and we will get better from that.
Defensively we had tremendous effort. We created a couple of turnovers. I thought we dominated the line of scrimmage. We talked about not letting them have balance and they had 19 yards rushing. We had five sacks and we held them to 272 yards and they had about three plays that would have kept them under 200. We did have a big, big bust at the end of the game when we turned 83 loose. We were in two man coverage and we didn’t cover him. We did have pass interference on Cordrea and then obviously the 55 yarder we had that setup a score for them. Overall it was a tremendous effort.
I thought the game went exactly like I thought it would go. It was close for the first half. I felt like we would get control of the game later third quarter and early fourth quarter and pull away. It was 20-10 with nine fifty something to go. The only thing I didn’t expect was the explosive kickoff return. That got them back in the game and that is a great lesson for our guys. One play can change the game. You can’t relax. We handled the adversity well but you have to handle the success. We did not do a good job. We had two of our best players totally unblocked and we don’t make the play. We have a lot of work to do there. Field goal was outstanding. I thought our punt team was solid. Artavis didn’t get any opportunities on returns but he did an excellent job of handling the ball for us. I am proud of Huegel. Two big kicks by that young man on the road.
At the end of the day for us it was a good, hard fought win. I am looking forward to moving ahead. We are enjoying this open date and getting a head start on Notre Dame. For us the mentality is the game. It is the biggest game of the year and an opportunity to play a great team. It should be a great matchup.
We will get some season work done this week. It is not all Notre Dame. We will get a head start on them but we have some things we need to work on as far as the season goes. We will do some self-scout and evaluate our personnel and keep moving forward.
Injury Update
Chris Register we think is getting better. We will reevaluate him on Monday.
Ryan Norton is improving. He will be out for sure for the Notre Dame game. We don’t think he will be ready for that. He is getting better. He is rehabbing and doing everything he needs to do there so we will get him back at some point.
The same thing with Dane Rogers. This is a big week for him as far as getting better. We will reevaluate him on Monday and see what his status is for the Notre Dame game.
We feel good about Jake Fruhmorgen. He just has a PCL sprain or injury. We think by next Monday he should be back in practice. We will see how that goes. It is not anything where he had surgery.
Joe Gore was able to come back and finish the game. He is sore in his right ankle but we will get him better this week and he should be ready to go. Everybody else is good.
Question – What is the status of Lakip and does he get a chance to compete with Greg?
Ammon will be back this week or for the Notre Dame game. I am excited to get him back in the mix. But Huegel is our starter. He has earned that and it is his job right now. Ammon will have a chance to jump back in there and compete. But it is not an open competition. We have a starter and Huegel has earned that. He has done what he needed to do these first three games. He is 5-6 with a couple of big kicks on the road. He has done a solid job.
I think the biggest thing for Ammon right now is let’s see if he can win that kickoff job. Now that is open and we will just evaluate the field goal situation as we move throughout the season. Every day matters. You have to go out and perform. But Greg is the starter.
Question – How to you fix the kickoff coverage?
Marion Hobby and Brent Venables coach our kickoff coverage team. They know what they are doing. That I can tell you. We have to execute what we are doing and what we are teaching. We did a decent job on all of the other kicks. Like I said you go up 20-10 and you have a few young guys out there. You relax a little bit. The most disappointing part of that kick was two of our very best players that are starters for us and the way it was schemed up they are completely free. They had nobody block them, nobody touched them. Poor technique and we dive at the feet and then we get another guy that is not where he needs to be position wise and neither makes the play. We had a freshman that really did a poor job of squeezing things down. We have to do a better job of coaching them and teaching them now that we have this on tape. We have a couple of personnel changes that we are going to make too.
Question – Is there an update on D.J. Reader?
No, no. I have not talked to him. I do not have any update at this point.
Question – Has kickoff returns just become a more explosive position with the talent teams put back there?
I don’t know that kids are more explosive now than they were five years ago. I just think that people are bringing them out. Heck I was watching the NFL last night and we have a guy catch it seven yards deep and he is bringing it out. People I think have changed their mentality a little bit. People see it more as an opportunity for an explosive play even if the ball is in the endzone. Coverage teams need to have the mentality that the ball is coming out every single time.
Question – Deshaun ran the ball more against Louisville. As the stakes get higher is that a trend we might see continue?
I have never said from day one that he wouldn’t run. He had got to run. That is what we do. He has to be able to make plays with his legs. We didn’t really need him in the first two games to make a lot of plays. He made some plays but it was mostly in the passing game where he extended plays. That is what he has to do for use. For us to be at our best offensively he had to be a factor. He had sixty something rushing and average 4.5 per carry. That is a very efficient night. He was decisive. We put the ball in his hands in a couple of critical situations and he came through for us. He is a weapon and you want to make sure defenses have to defend him. We don’t have to feature him or rely on him but when we pick our spots with him he is a threat. To not run him would be a major threat to take out of our game plan.
Question – Do you reevaluate what is going on behind Wayne at RB and see if Zac or one of the guys can get more carries?
No question, I think Wayne has separated and he got hot the other night. We have always said that if a guy gets hot we are going to feed him. 210 rushing yards on those guys and only eight negative yards all night against a team we ran for maybe 50 last year. I am really, really pleased with what I see from Wayne and what we are able to do up front. But behind him Tony rolled with C.J. the other night and I think that we have to give some of those other guys some more opportunities and see how it shakes out behind Wayne. We will definitely do that.
Question – What has Ryan Carter done to deserve the time he is getting?
We love Ryan Carter. He is one of our better players. He is a guy that our local media has heard me brag on a number of times. We think he has a chance to really have a bright future. He is just a tough, physical, fast, instinctive guy. He is just a sophomore but he is a guy that can really help us. We wanted to get a third corner in the game if you will from a coverage standpoint in some of their obvious passing situations. He did a great job. He did have the one mistake on the wheel rout that they hit. He did a nice job and we really feel like he can help us there.