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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 27, 2017

Dabo Swinney

Greensboro, North Carolina

DABO SWINNEY: Well, first of all, just really proud of our team for a hard-fought victory last week. Just have a great appreciation for how our guys compete, and just, again, another hard-fought win and excited about going back on the road this week. Huge challenge with Virginia Tech. This is a great football team we're getting ready to play. We know that very well because we played them in the ACC Championship game last year. I know there's a lot of different people involved now, but still, same program, and Coach Fuente has done an unbelievable job there, but it's going to be exciting. I mean, it's a great venue to play. It's game day, it's all that stuff, and really looking forward to the challenge early in the season, and to have an opportunity to play in a match-up like this is fun to be a part of.

But we know we've got a huge challenge defensively. Bud Foster is as good as it gets and creates a lot of challenges for our offense in all phases, running the ball, throwing the ball, our protections, and then their offense just does a great job of creating advantageous plays, angles, and so we're really looking forward to the challenge, and with that I'll take your questions.

Q. Even though it can make your job more difficult this weekend and in the end, how much better is it for the ACC to have Virginia Tech and Duke and Miami, and my goodness, Wake Forest sitting there undefeated, especially when usually we're all so focused on Clemson and Florida State, this year there's a lot of other teams being talked about, it seems more than usual.
DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, and it's just kind of right along the line with what I've talked about for the last few years, just how deep this conference is. We had 11 bowl teams, I think it was 11 bowl teams last year, and 9-3 in those games counting our National Championship game, and so what that tells you, because all those games are being played against people outside this conference, what that tells you is the strength of this conference. So whether a team is 3-1 and 4-0 or even 0-2 in Florida State's case, Florida State has played two really good teams, and trust me, Florida State is as good as anybody out there, and that will probably prove to be the case by the end of the season.

This is a deep conference, man, and anybody can beat anybody on any given week. I know Syracuse didn't beat LSU, but to go into Baton Rouge and play the way they did and to have a chance to win that game, just again, it's just week in and week out, this is an incredibly challenging conference, and to see what Virginia did out at Boise, I mean, how many games have they lost at Boise? Not many. And for them to be able to go out there and beat a really good football team at their place, same thing. I mean, I think we've got a bunch of great teams and a bunch of great coaches in this league. It's a huge, huge challenge week in and week out, but it's good to see the league having success, but it's also one of those things if you're going to be successful in the postseason, you know, what you see week in and week out in your conference to me helps prepare you for that.

Q. I know people have kind of been eager to throw a lot of praise on Travis Etienne after the start he had. He also comes off as very humble about the whole thing. How have you seen him handle this sort of instant fame that he's had amongst Clemson fans, not necessarily just the on-the-field work ethic but how he's handled all the praise?
DABO SWINNEY: It's great. It's Etienne. A lot of people still call me Dabo, but one of these days everybody is going to get that it's Dabo. But hey, I've got to hang in there a little longer. But my man Etienne, I'm going to get that right, right out of the gate. But he's done great. He's done awesome, man. He's just a humble kid, and he just comes from an awesome family, a very close family. He's been raised with the right values in his life. So he's doing really well. He just shows up and practices. He's got a great personality. He's really funny, and just off to a good start with him.

Q. I know he was sort of a late add for the recruiting class for you, but what was it that sort of connected the two of you guys that made it a good fit at the last minute?
DABO SWINNEY: Well, our situation had changed at the position because we had a guy committed, we were just going to take one running back, and a guy had been committed since February, so we really hadn't recruited any other backs, and then due to some circumstances, that situation changed for us, and so -- and it wasn't until like October or November, so now all of a sudden we've got to go find a running back, and he was a guy we had looked at early and liked but we just never really got to first base even because we offered two guys right out of the gate and one committed and we were done. And then again, that situation ended up changing, and we had to go back and look at the start and evaluating all the running backs again. So he was, again, on that initial list of guys that we had evaluated and liked, we just didn't know much about him.

So just reached out, and I think he was a young man that had committed to Texas A&M early and then his situation changed, and so he was looking, as well, and so we reached out, he was interested, and Tony did an awesome job, just an awesome job of connecting with him and his family, flew out to see him, and they were interested enough to come take a visit. You know, I think when they got here, they were like, you know, this is what we're looking for. This is the situation that we want him to be in. It was what Travis was looking for.

It just turned out to be a good fit, you know. Burton Burns is a guy I have a lot of respect for. He's the running backs coach at Alabama, and I remember early on when we were kind of getting involved with Travis, he was one of the guys we talked to because he knew a lot about Travis. I think he had recruited him pretty hard, and he really, really couldn't say enough good things about him, as well.

So you know, we just did our due diligence, and he did his, and he came in, and it was just a good fit for both of us. So just really thankful that it all worked out. You know, and we've had that -- we had the same situation the year before. We weren't recruiting -- we really were not recruiting DBs and then all of a sudden I got four DBs leaving to go pro early. Man, we were able to go get Isaiah Simmons out of Kansas, and same thing, he wasn't coming to Clemson, and then all of a sudden we had a spot and he came and visited, and he loved it. Same thing with K'Von Wallace, an opportunity -- although we had recruited Trayvon, Trayvon Mullen, and Nolan Turner. I think the positive in that is you can still go and get good players in December and January, you know, with the strength of our brand.

Q. You mentioned K'Von Wallace. I'm curious what has his development been like, and when you're nicked up in the secondary, how much does his versatility help you guys?
DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, a lot. You know, he's a great player, and he pretty much worked all corner in our fall camp, and then right before we were getting ready to -- and then we worked -- we cross trained him and worked him a little bit at safety but he mostly was going to work corner, and then, boom, he's got to go and start at safety for us against Auburn. He's done a great job, man, but he's exactly as we described him and as you just said, very versatile. He gives us a lot of options, and especially as he continues to mature and go through his career. But a really good football player and legitimately can play either corner, either safety, can play nickel. He's a lot like Marcus Gilchrist. We had a guy named Marcus Gilchrist here several years ago, and he's a very similar type of a guy, and you have to really be a smart guy to be able to manage all that, and he fits all that criteria, so really proud of K'Von. He's got a bright future.

Q. And when you look at Virginia Tech defensively, Tremaine Edmunds, 49, is he a guy that kind of shows out a little bit on film?
DABO SWINNEY: Well, yeah, he's very active. I mean, guy started 14 games last year, he's got a lot of experience. I mean, he's big. I think their backers are outstanding, very experienced group, 6, 54 and 49, all those guys have played a lot of football for them. They understand the scheme, and we've got our hands full with those guys.

Q. Special teams almost inevitably emerges as an important factor in big games; where are you after Greg's injury, and was the missed extra point by Alex against BC -- I didn't see the game; was that on him or was that more of a team breakdown? How did that unfold?
DABO SWINNEY: No, he just hooked it, just simple as that. Just a bad hit. But no, he's doing good. It was good for him to -- he found out he was going to be the starter for the first time ever on Thursday. You know, for that situation, I thought he did a great job. You know, because he hasn't been in that role. Any time he's gone in to kick, it's not been pressure situations. He hasn't started a game, and so now all of a sudden you're kicking off, you're kicking your own deck for field goals, you're kicking all the extra points, and I thought he did a really good job. It was a good experience for him, and he's had a good week of practice. So he's definitely capable. I mean, that's why we signed him. He was the best kicker in the state coming out, and you know, he's a redshirt junior now, so he's a more confident guy and a more experienced guy because he has gotten some experience over his first couple years. But that deal last week was really good for him, and I'm confident he'll get the job done for us.

Q. Now that he is likely to face pressure situations in games, do you then create pressure situations for him in practice?
DABO SWINNEY: Oh, absolutely, every day. I mean, we finished Tuesday practice with long field goal -- in fact, he made a 50-yarder -- a game-winning 50-yarder yesterday. That's how we end every Tuesday practice, with a long game winner. He hit it yesterday, which was great for him, and then today we'll finish practice with a two-minute drill. Got to have a field goal to win it. So yeah, we create all those situations for these guys just to try to give them the best preparation possible.

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