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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 30, 2017

Dave Clawson

Greensboro, North Carolina

DAVE CLAWSON: Well, it's here. We're excited to kick off the ACC season tomorrow night. We've kind of made it a tradition lately of opening up at home on a Thursday night. We like that. Our students just got here. We should get a good student crowd. It's been a long camp with the new rules the NCAA made. But I really liked them. I thought it helped keep our football team healthier.

As long as the camp was, I think guys get anxious and excited to finally play someone else. We're almost 24 hours away. We're looking forward to getting the season kicked off.

Q. You liked the long camp, it helped keep your team healthier. How did it keep your team healthier?
DAVE CLAWSON: Probably every two or three practices, I would have our trainer, I would say, Give me an update of what our injury report looks like now compared to a year ago. It was more than consistently cut in half. I mean, again, I don't think anybody liked the idea of starting camp in July. But by not having doubles, by giving our players one day off a week, the health benefits to our football team were obvious throughout training camp.

In terms of the injury report and also asking the players how they felt, because of that, I thought our practices were more productive. Camp is always a lot of hard work. It didn't seem like nearly the grind it was when you did doubles and never had a day off.

In terms of something that's in the best welfare of the student-athletes' health, I think this was a really good move. Now it's hard to please everything because you can't do these things and start camp early and give them a day off and also give them more time. Those are both things on the agenda. Those two things are impossible to reconcile.

But I think overall our players would take the tradeoff of coming in earlier and getting those days off. Again, our injury report going into game one looks significantly different than it did a year ago.

Q. What did you mean by that?
DAVE CLAWSON: There's a big initiative right now to give student-athletes more time off. You know, these are all competing. There's only so much time. You can't have longer camps and give them a day off a week and also bring them in later to camp. At a certain point, something's got to give.

These changes just came out in April. There was some pushback, and there should have been, of the late notice. There's a lot of initiatives now to give players more time off, to make less mandatory time, give them more time away from football. Then you come up with a rule that they've got to come into camp a week early. Certainly doesn't mesh if you want to give them more time off.

But in terms of the health and safety of our players, I think it was a really good change. Again, our players say they feel better. The day off really helped them get their legs back, allowed them to get healthy. You weren't going seven and eight practices in a week. I mean, the most you could have were six in a week with a off day. Again, it helped us I think a lot. I think our players will tell you that this is the best their bodies have ever felt going through a camp. That was from our fifth-year seniors.

Q. How do the coaches' bodies feel?
DAVE CLAWSON: We feel better. Just getting that day that the players were off, I mean, we would work, but we would be able to go home and have dinner with our families. That wasn't a 16- or 18-hour day. It allowed you to feel a lot more prepared for the next six practices. That off day, we would get the next three or four planned out. It was a lot more efficient because we weren't changing practice plans at the last minute because, Hey, we have two tight ends hurt, so you can't run your two tight end offense today, or you're short on receivers, you're down to three corners so the nickel package is out. We try to plan those things months in advance. We have pre-season practice schedules that we plan certainly in June or July. We had a lot more time to adjust midstream because of the off day.

Again, I thought we practiced more efficiently. I think for the coaches it was good. I felt more organized. When things happen in camp, whether it's weather, an injury, whatever, you had more time to adjust and make your next practice or your next meeting much more efficient.

Q. How do you think that will help your team, especially in the early part of the season?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, I think it will help us in a lot of ways. Number one, when you're healthier, you're usually better. We always make it a goal the first three to four games of the season to try to play more players, to see which guys are game-ready. Then once you get past that, the guys that are playing well play more, and the guys that maybe aren't quite ready, you cut their reps down.

But those guys were able to get more practice and they're healthier. Because of the one practice a day, you were able to do a walk-through every day, which really helped those younger players learn the offense and learn the defense. You could spend more time with them.

So I think we have more playable players ready because of that. I think our freshmen understand the offense and defense and special teams systems better than they had in the past. Just because you had the one practice a day and you didn't have two, you had time for a walk-through every day. That's really great teaching.

Some kids can learn by getting on a white board, others look at film. I find that the most productive meetings and teaching that we have occur during the walk-throughs. Being able to have more time for those and spend time with our younger players I think was really beneficial.

Q. I know you're getting some help from some graduate transfers this year. How did they wind up there with you? Anything about those grad transfer rules that you don't like or would change?
DAVE CLAWSON: I mean, the rule's the rule. These two guys, after spring football, those were two spots that we thought were very thin. We had two scholarships available. We had a player leave our program at corner that we didn't expect, that left to be a graduate transfer somewhere else. So we had a need. Cedric became available. It goes back to you recruit them, you have them on the visit, you kind of show them how they'll fit in your program, how there's a need, and you hope that you're able to get them in school. Both in the case of Cedric and Deon, those were two positions of need, that we lost players late. The signing date has passed, there's not a high school player you can go out and sign. We were below 85 scholarships. These are guys that can fit in and can help us and do multiple things for us.

In this case, it's a little bit of a Godsend that we could find those two kids.

Q. Did they contact you out of the blue? Did they have a connection to someone on your staff already?
DAVE CLAWSON: The one guy contacted us out of the blue. The other guy, there was a connection with someone on our staff.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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