When the Clemson football team first got back on campus this past June, they had a little “invincible” problem. That led to an outbreak where 37 players contracted the COVID-19 virus in the month.

Since then, Clemson has had very few issues. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney mentioned Xavier Thomas contracted the coronavirus before he came to Clemson and the others, he chalked it up to things that are outside of the coaching staff and Clemson’s control.

“I think the biggest thing early on is kind of what you said, these guys when they first got back, they had not seen each other since March. And it is really not the hour or hour and a half that you have them, it is kind of the twenty-two that you don’t,” Swinney said following Thursday’s first day of fall camp. “And at that time, things are kind of opening up a little bit. You are right, we tell our kids all the time, but sometimes people can feel like they are invincible or whatever.”

Swinney feels his players caught on quickly after the initial breakout and really bought into what they had to do.

“The biggest thing I would say to any of the players out there is to be honest and to be very, very transparent,” he said. “This is not a time where you feel something or whatever and you don’t let somebody know. Let’s be honest and let’s be transparent and follow the guidelines, so you can protect yourself and you can protect the others and give yourself the best chance to play.”

Swinney had to sit wide receivers Joseph Ngata and Frank Landson for the first day of practice due to COVID-19 protocol. He said both are roommates, so they have to be safe and put their players’ best interest first.

“We have spent hours and hours and hours with that, so again our leadership, our health experts, I just kind of defer everything to them and they have really done a great job of giving us a plan and our job is to execute it,” Swinney said.

“We have been really fortunate. A great majority of our guys were asymptomatic. So, we have been really, really fortunate,” he continued. “We have had two or three guys that had some symptoms and a couple of guys that might have lingered a little longer than others. We have been really fortunate. A number of our guys have been able to get back to their normal stuff within the quarantine time.”

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