Swinney: "I'm excited about this team's potential"

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney says the opportunity is there both for the team and the fans this weekend.

by TigerNet Staff - Mon Oct 17 21:44:03 GMT-04:00 2022

Clemson didn't quite finish out the 34-28 win at Florida State to head coach Dabo Swinney's liking, but any critiques over being conservative on offense closing out the victory don't quite add up to him.

"We hadn't won many times down there in the history of Clemson, and that's a good team," Swinney said on his call-in show Monday. "They have enough to beat you. Proud of our guys for hanging in there. Offensively, we did a lot of good things...Really proud of our guys. Really not sure where the conservative stuff or whatever is being talked about. We scored on five out of seven drives, and in the second half, in the third quarter, one was a one-play touchdown and the other was a touchdown that a holding call negated that we had to kick a field goal. And then we had one three-and-out that was just a bad series. And then we get the ball in the fourth quarter, and same thing, we only had two possessions...We get the ball 10 minutes to go up 20 on the minus-4 yard-line and we run a playaction and threw it down the field to Beaux (Collins) and we throw it to (Jake Briningstool) and DJ (Uiagalelei) didn't like it and threw it away. You're up 20. And unfortunately, they went and scored.

"Up two touchdowns, we made them use all their timeouts and punt the ball to the five yard-line. I'm just disappointed with how we finished defensively for sure. I thought offensively we managed the game and did what we needed to do to win."

What encourages Swinney is that he believes any issues from seven games thus far can be managed, which is a change from the situation after a 4-3 start last year.

"Definitely things we can work on, but man, I tell you what -- this team is not afraid to be coached and they take ownership of things," Swinney said. "They have found a way. We have a quarterback that's playing at a really, really high level. A kicker that's as good as anyone in the country. A punter who had a good night the other night. It's a team that's a little battle-tested. And every mistake that's been made is correctable.

"There's some teams out there that make mistakes that they just can't do anything about. There's just nothing you can do. In fact, we were sitting here last year at 4-3 and we're 7-0 and we've won 13 in a row from where we were last year at 4-3. And last year at 4-3 we were one of those teams. There were just some things that we couldn't do anything about. So we just had to find a way to make it work.

"The mistakes we've made as a team are very, very correctable. I'm excited about this team's potential as we keep moving forward and what an opportunity this week."

That opportunity is not only for his team but also for the fans this weekend in the noon start against Syracuse.

"I'm really hopeful that the crowd's going to show up and be ready and be that factor for us again, like they were that NC State game," he said. "They impacted that game. I'm going to do my part to get these guys ready to go. Excited about all that's at stake. The biggest game ever as far as undefeateds (in Memorial Stadium). Eighty-one years and we've never had two teams 6-0 or better face off in the Valley. I couldn't believe that when y'all told me that. It ought to be tough.

"We shouldn't be beating East Toboga Community College for the ACC record (for home wins in a row) 38 in a row. It should be hard. That's the way it ought to be for a record like this that's been there for a long time. It ought to be tough. I'm excited for it against really good competition in Syracuse."