Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney says it is time to move on from Saturday’s incident involving an NC State assistant coach and his quarterback.
In the third-ranked Tigers, 56-41, victory in Raleigh, N.C., Wolfpack assistant coach Des Kitchings pushed Deshaun Watson after he ran out of bounds in the third quarter. Swinney said in his Sunday teleconference that he spoke with Watson about what happened and everything is okay between him and Kitchings.
“I talked to the assistant coach. I talked to Dave Doeren. He called me right afterwards. In fact, I was on the bus headed to the airport,” Swinney said. “Listen, Dave Doeren will handle his staff, and they took ownership of it.”
The push came with about three minutes to play in the third quarter following Watson’s 11-yard run on a second-and-five play from the Clemson 28. Doeren told the media after the game that Kitchings apologized to Watson and the Clemson coaches.
“Everybody recognizes that cannot happen,” Swinney said. “They handled it the right way. Listen, there is no issue. Dez Kitchings is a good guy. I have always had a lot of respect for him. He just kind of got caught up in the moment right there. I have great respect for Coach Doeren and how he is managing his program. Sometimes you have things that pop up along the way that you as a head coach have to deal with, and I promise you he will handle that the right way, but they all did.
“Dez apologized and called me personally so let’s move on. We all have bigger things to do than to worry about that.”
Here come the ‘Noles: Those bigger things are the 17th-ranked Florida State Seminoles. The much anticipated battle between the ACC’s two heavyweights is finally here as the Tigers, who are 8-0 for the first time since 2011, host FSU at 3:30 p.m., this coming Saturday.
The Seminoles (7-1, 5-1 ACC) bring a little quarterback controversy with them to Death Valley. Sean Maguire, who played against Clemson last year in Tallahassee, started in relief of an injured Everett Golson in their win over Syracuse on Saturday.
Maguire completed 23-of-35 passes for 348 yards and three touchdowns in the 45-21 victory. Fisher gave no indication of who he might play against Clemson following the game. Golson was injured against Georgia Tech on Oct. 24.
“It isn’t anything we have not seen,” Swinney said. “We played with two in the game. We have seen it all this year. You go back to Louisville. We were not sure what they were going to do with their quarterbacks. Then they have them all in the game. So we had to deal with that before.
“We will prepare for what Florida State does. Regardless of who is the quarterback, Florida State is going to do what they do. Both of those guys are very capable. Maguire has already beaten us once so he is a confident guy and they have confidence in him, and then Golson has played for them all year.
“They are not going to run a different offense like the situation that we had at Louisville. That was a little different in that their plan of attack was going to be different with very different strengths. Both of these guys were good fits for what they do at Florida State. They are not going to change regardless of who is under center.”
Maguire completed 21 of 39 passes for 304 yards and two touchdowns with one interception in last year’s overtime win over Clemson. He played for the suspended Jameis Winston in that game.
No concern for the defense. Despite giving up runs of 41 and 66 yards, plus the fact the ACC’s leading rusher in Delvin Cook is coming to town, Swinney says he is not worried about the play of his defense, especially his linebackers, who had a couple of issues with their fits against the Wolfpack.
“I’m not worried about any of that,” Swinney said. “I’m just worried about getting a plan together. We trust our guys. We did not play very well last night, but we will play better.
“Ben (Boulware) did not have his best game, but B.J. Goodson was the player of the game. (Travis) Blanks played well. I think we all can appreciate who Ben Boulware is. He worked his butt off … he just did not have a good night for his standard. He will get better, and we will play better this week.”
Goodson finished the game with 10 tackles, three tackles for loss, a sack and a caused fumble.