CLEMSON – The Clemson Tigers took to Jervey Meadows for the last day of preparation before their first team scrimmage at Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

Clemson safety Jalyn Phillips met with the media after Friday’s practice.

–With the physically and competitiveness that took place during the first day of full pads, Phillips gave a lot of credit to the new offense. “You can tell the offense got a little juice to them with Coach [Garrett] Riley coming in, for the fights and competitiveness that’s just football it’s gonna happen, that’s just guys out there being competitive… a little push and shove might happen right then but it’s nothing major, that’s us building that chemistry and team bonding that you see.” Phillips said there is just an all-around swagger throughout the building that he has not seen since he’s been at Clemson.

–On the decision to come back for one more season, Phillips said it was a very easy one. He said he sat down with Ruke [Orhorhoro], Tyler Davis, Sheridan Jones, and (Xavier Thomas) and, as a group, determined they came here with an intention to win a National Championship and that had not been accomplished. “I had a goal… I feel like last year we came up short for what we wanted… I have not completed the mission, this year we wanted to leave it all on the field and have one more shot at it.”

–Phillips had a lot of praise for the growth of fellow safety Andrew Mukuba. He reassured that “he’s a dog, he just comes into practice every day trying to win the day whether it is man to man or just tackling, he is trying to get better… They know what it takes and the goal that we are trying to reach is going to take hard work every day and dedication to get there.” With Mukuba and RJ Mickens back at the safety role where they are comfortable the Tigers can expect this three-headed monster to flip the field and create a lot of opportunities.

–You can expect to see the Clemson defense in a lot of 4-2-5 schemes with some inconsistency at linebacker. Phillips said the young group of safeties have turned a lot of heads during camp so far, “Khalil Barnes, Sherrod Covil, Rob Billings, Kylen Webb, and Kylon Griffin… these guys are getting in their playbooks and running with the swarm team making plays… we’re loaded at safety for sure… we have several packages where we use three safeties, four, even five sometimes and those guys know that… those guys are gonna have to come and step in and the standard is gonna be the same.”

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