SAN JOSE, Calif. – Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney spoke to the media Sunday morning at the San Jose Marriott during the head coaches press conference, previewing Monday night’s 2019 College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
Swinney on Trevor Lawrence’s unique talent
“I really started studying him his sophomore year in high school. It was pretty obvious that he was an elite talent, skill-set wise, but I like to get to know these guys a little bit and what’s their mental makeup and so forth. And I think you can get somewhat of a feel for that, but I don’t think you really ever know until you start coaching a guy and you transition. That first spring when, I mean, day one installation, you kind of have an installation plan of how you’re going to put in your systems, offensively, defensively and so forth, and I mean, he got day one like that. It was like fish to water, just natural.”
Swinney on being on the same level as Alabama
“Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, when I got the job in ’09, I felt like at Clemson, we could build a program that could compete at the highest level. We were a long way away from that. That’s for sure. But I felt like we had a few pieces in place, and we just needed to build an infrastructure, we needed to modernize our program in every sense of the word, from staff to our recruiting to our facilities, the way the administration thought. You name it. Because we were competitive, so I felt like at the very beginning that we could be a team.”
Swinney on his players enjoying the journey
“I hope so, because I really tried to be intentional in that all year, not just now but literally all year. And that was kind of a focus for me this year. I knew we were going to have a good team. I knew we would have some challenges. But this group of seniors is unlike any group I’ve ever been around. I mean, I’ve had some amazing, unbelievable individual leaders that I’ve been around, but nothing collectively like this group. I mean, 26 guys get votes for captains. This is a special team, and their focus and how they handle themselves in the off-season, in the spring, the summer, the day-to-day interaction, I just – I wanted to enjoy all of it.”
Swinney on the absence of Dexter Lawrence, Braden Galloway and Zach Giella
“Well, Dexter is a starter. The other two didn’t play much, so that didn’t really – I hated it for them because they missed out on an opportunity to be a part of it. But certainly from a team competitive standpoint, Dexter was the guy that was starting, playing a lot of ball for us. We miss him. He’s a great player, tremendous, one of the best in the country at doing what he does. So I’m thankful that we’ve got Albert Huggins and some other guys, Nyles and Jordan that have stepped up, and they’re ready to go perform to the very best of their ability. We certainly miss Dexter.”
Swinney on another Alabama-Clemson matchup being good for CFB
“I mean, I’m not going to apologize for having a great team and a great program and a bunch of committed guys, and Coach Saban is not, either. I think the objective is to get the two best teams. That’s kind of the way it is. If that’s not best for college football, then why did we even do it? Why don’t we just go back to the way it was and have bowl games and you put this team against this team, and it’s not necessarily the two best teams playing, and then at the end, like it used to do, you just vote on who you think is the best team. That’s what we used to have.”