Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney held his Sunday teleconference where he discussed the win over Louisville and looked ahead to Boston College.
A transcript of some of the teleconference follows:
Opening Statement
It was a quick turnaround for us. We are getting ready for a huge challenge this week, but it was a fun tape to grade. I am really proud of our team. Again, just in the leadership that has just been awesome to be around every day. These guys show up ready to go and really
I thought set the tempo right out of the gate offensively and just continued it for four quarters. There were just so many good things in the tape. We got to play just a lot of guys and that is always a good thing as well. I am really proud of Mitch Hyatt. He has played 3,380 snaps now. Obviously that is the most of anybody ever here. What a huge accomplishment that is. It just speaks to his temperment, his preparation and his ability and then again just his consistency. It was a dominant game. I thought our team played with very good discipline. Offensively it was just one of those days that you kind of will look back on for a long time probably to some of the things that we were able to do running the football. We set the record for yards per play. That has been in the books since 1903. We set the record for yards per carry. And the biggest thing offensive line wise was, give a shout out to those guys. I was really, really proud of our OL. We had no sacks in back to back games. We only had eight negative yards and those were from the fumble on the exchange and the little backwards pass to Mitch Hyatt. Really those guys did a great job at the point of attack and were really good in the redzone. All of the backs ran well. I bunch of guys got a chance to touch the ball. We just played a really clean game. It was one of the best games I have really ever been around.
Defensively we did a good job verses the run. We didn’t do a good job on third downs in the first half but by the time the game was over we had dominated third down. I was really proud of that. Both sides, offensively, we were really good on third down. We got some stops on fourth down. The biggest thing defensively was continuing our takeaway streak. That is 19 games in a row now. We had two picks and a pick six. It is always fun when you can score on defense. But we had 21 points off of turnovers. So I was just really proud of the defense for the job that they continue to do.
There were just a lot of good things. We blocked an extra point . That is probably one of the plays that I’m most proud of. Your up 60 points or whatever. They score a touchdown and our guys go out there and block an extra point. I just think that one play says a lot about the heart and character of our football team.
I really want to thank the fans for the energy that we had in the stadium especially with it being fall break.
We have turned the page and are excited about the challenge this week. This is what it is all about. You work all year to hope that you will have an opportunity like this down the stretch. So here we are. We are getting ready for a really good BC team. It is going to be exciting to go up there, and GameDay, and we have a chance to compete for the division title and so many other opportunities as well. So it is exciting and as a staff we are hard at it tonight. We will get the team back in here tomorrow and get back to work.
Question: What is the injury update on Sean Pollard? Was his hand still bothering him yesterday?
Swinney: No, his hand was fine. He was good to go. He had a back spasm on Wednesday at practice. It was really sore on Thursday. He wasn’t really able to do much on Thursday. He was good to go, ready to go. We started Gage and we got off to such a quick start. I think we had two touchdowns in five plays. So we were able to just not have to play him. He was ready to play. The biggest issue with him was the back spasms. He is going to have a little cast or brace on it but he practiced Monday, Tuesday and on Wednesday he had the spasm.
Question: Do you kow if Mark Fields will be able to play this week? Also with the way you are rolling to you have to guard against saying hey it is not always going to be this easy?
Swinney: We will have to see on Mark. He pulled his groin. Hopefully we will get him back but we will see how he practices this week or will the leadership on this team do you not worry?
On the other team definitely the leadership of our team has done a phenominal job all year. That is why we have been able to consistently win and it’s why we have done what we have the last five ballgames back to the Syracuse game. How our team responded to some adversity and then these last four games they have been incredibly consistent. They are just trying to play well each week and I think that definitely comes from the veteran leadership.
These guys are very focused. Nobody thinks we are going to have any grand illusions and we don’t go into games thinking that. We just go into games trying to play well. Whatever happens in the course of the game you respond to it. But we get ourselves ready for the biggest game of the year every single week. That is the mindset that we take into every game. So it just so happens this is the biggest game of the year so you find a way to win this one and they are going to hand you a trophy and an opportunity to achieve a goal. This is a ranked football team. I haven’t seen the polls but I’m sure they are somewhere inside the top 15 or so. This is a really good team. They have great players and are very well coached. This is going to be a huge challenge, especially at their place.
Question: What does it mean to the offense to have a veteran like Hunter Renfrow on the team?
Swinney: Well it just means you have a smart, savy football player that you can count on. He is just incredibly consistent day in and day out. He is a great example to his teammates in how he prepares and practices. He is so consistent in everything he does. There is no greater teacher than experience so any time you have a very talented, experienced player it is a good thing.
Question: I was just curious about the shorter kickoffs. I am assuming it was on purpose but maybe it wasn’t. Was that just to get the coverage team some work?
Swinney: No, I guess he just didn’t eat his Wheaties. No, he just didn’t quite catch them like he had been catching them. We got to cover them though. It don’t matter.