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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 3, 2010

Dabo Swinney

THE MODERATOR: We now welcome Clemson head coach, Dabo Swinney. We'll bring on coach, ask for a brief opening statement, then go to questions.
Coach.
COACH SWINNEY: Hope you guys are having a good day. Good to be with you.
We're trying to get ready for a hot team this week, NC State. They're playing very well. They're 6-2. Playing well on both sides of the ball. They've got a quarterback that is I think probably playing as good or better than anybody in this conference from an individual standpoint.
Tough task for us. But we're excited to be able to line back up and get an opportunity to play again, especially coming off a disappointing loss like we had last week. It's Military Appreciation Day here at Clemson. That's always a special day. Look forward to getting back out there Saturday.

Q. Could you talk about Dwayne Allen, his progression this year?
COACH SWINNEY: He's still a young player. He's done some really good things. Probably biggest thing I'm pleased with Dwayne is just his maturity. He's really grown up a lot, has become a really good practice player. The thing that is good to see is he has really taken to the physical side of the position from a blocking standpoint. He's done a nice job. He's taken a lot of pride in that.
Pretty easy to see his athleticism, the fact he can run and catch and all that. He's taken a lot of pride in blocking, trying to be a complete tight end. He's playing good for us, proud of him. I think he's going to continue to get better. He's still a young player.

Q. Coach, I'm doing a story on depth at this point in this the season. Could you tell me a little bit about the depth you have at runningback. Tough to lose an Andre Ellington, but I guess it's a good thing you have somebody like Harper ready to go.
COACH SWINNEY: Yes, it is. That's a big loss for us there with Andre. He's been a big play-maker for us this season. But Jamie Harper is a very good player. This is going to give him an opportunity to show that he can be the guy. Look forward to seeing him hopefully elevate his game to another level.
We have a redshirt freshman named Roderick McDowell. This will be his opportunity to show that he can play. He's actually a very similar type player as Andre Ellington as far as his skill level and running style and all that. He's not quite as mature right now as Andre was as a redshirt freshman, the whole picture, overall scheme, practice habits, that kind of stuff. We've challenged Rod. He's excited about it. I expect him to play well this week. He'll get his opportunity.
Then we have a senior walk-on named Daniel Barnes that's our third-team guy going into this ballgame.

Q. Dabo, how difficult has the way this season has gone been on Kyle Parker?
COACH SWINNEY: Well, I mean, it's on all of us, coaches, fans, players, Kyle, everybody is disappointed with where we are right now because it's not where we wanted to be. That's disappointing, but it's where we are.
Our losses have been very difficult losses. It's not like somebody's just lined up and we just haven't been good enough to play or been blown out or something like that. We've been in position to win every game. When you lose right there at the end, it's tough. Three of them on the road. We've not played well on the road at all this year. That's something that is going to have to change.
But it's where we are. Certainly everybody wanted to have a better season than what we've had. But it's not over. We're focused on NC State. We have the whole month of November to play football. These guys like to play. If we were 8-0 right now, 7-1, 6-2, we'd all be wanting to win this game. It's no different at 4-4. You want to line up and win the game. That's really what we're focused on, just trying to have the best week of practice we can, put it all together once again, try to get a win.

Q. Kyle indicated this is going to be his last year of football. Do you think he's having any regrets or second thoughts about coming back?
COACH SWINNEY: No, no, I don't. I knew this was going to be his last year of football all year. That's no news there. It's his last year of football at Clemson, but I'm not so sure it will be his last year of football for the rest of his life. We'll see how that all plays out.
No, I don't think he has any regrets at all. Kyle is not one of those kind of guys. He makes decisions and he goes forward. He's been 100% committed to helping us win. He played a bad game up there at BC. He did not play well. Not going to let one bad game change how I feel about Kyle Parker. I expect him to play better this week. I'll be very disappointed if he doesn't.

Q. Coach, just wondering what your impressions were of BC's Montel Harris and what makes him such an effective runner.
COACH SWINNEY: Well, Montel is a tough runner. He gets the tough yard. He just kind of grinds it out. He has a humongous offensive line. I think they average 6'6", 300 something, do a good job up front. That's what they do, they try to run the ball. I think he had 30 something carries against us.
We really did a good job in the second half. Didn't do a good job of tackling in the first half. That's one of the things about Montel, he breaks a lot of tackles. He's a guy that you really have to get down there low and wrap him up because if you don't, he gets those legs moving and the next thing you know it's seven yards. That's the one thing I would say about him, he gets the tough yards and he's hard to tackle.

Q. How do you feel about your pass defense heading into the game?
COACH SWINNEY: Defensively in general, we really have the last four ballgames started to play the way I envisioned us to play all season. We're playing much better defense. We're getting after the quarterback well. We've had some scores on defense.
But it's a big challenge. NC State is scoring 35 points a game. They're number one in total offense. They're throwing for almost 300 yards a game. It all starts with their quarterback. He's playing just extremely well. We've got to do a great job of minimizing his explosiveness.
One of the ways you do that is you have to take the run away from them. You have to stop the run. They ran the ball effectively against Florida State. We can't allow them to do that, so that they have to play one-dimensional football against us. We have to make plays. We have to match up with their receivers, make some plays. That starts with being very disciplined with the way you rush Wilson because he obviously makes a lot of big plays for them as far as keeping the chains moving off of scrambles. We'll have to do a good job with how we rush him.

Q. Dabo, did Andre meet with a foot specialist yesterday?
COACH SWINNEY: He's actually going to go tomorrow. The doctor is going to be in Greenville. He's out of Charlotte. He's going to be down in Greenville. That worked out better as opposed to Andre going all the way up there. He probably won't make it back in time for the start of practice tomorrow. But we'll know a little bit more detail after he meets with him as far as the course of rehab and things that we need to do to get him back as quick as we possibly can.

Q. So no update?
COACH SWINNEY: No. He'll meet with him tomorrow.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for being with us today. Good luck this weekend. We'll talk to you next week.
COACH SWINNEY: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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