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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 4, 2013Dabo SwinneyDABO SWINNEY: Good to be back with y'all this week. Coming off a big win last week, proud of our guys. They played extremely well. Another big opportunity for us this week to just grow our team, and got a lot of improving to do in all areas, so it's just that time of year where you're just trying to get better each and every week. Today is a Wednesday practice for us, and going to be a critical day as we kind of get into a normal routine of preparation around here. South Carolina State is a team that we're very familiar with from being from the state. Coach Pough and his staff do a tremendous job. They're well prepared, had a hard‑fought game last week with Coastal Carolina, and definitely a team that is very, very capable with a lot of athletic guys who can run. They do a great job defensively creating some problems with their fronts and the multiplicity of how they present some of those looks, but at the end of the day, again, it's about us and just trying to get better this week, clean up our execution, and just continue to try to play to a standard. Q. Rod McDowell was talking yesterday about his brother is over in Kuwait and he's kind of been a motivational influence in his life. Do you know much about Rod and his relationship with his brother? DABO SWINNEY: Not a ton, other than he's close to all of his family, and his mother is also a very big instrumental person in his life, and she's actually getting ready to move to California. Not only is his brother over there, but his mother, I think after the third game, will be with her job being transferred to California. Tough situation for him there. Q. Would adversity be a good word to define what Rod has gone through? DABO SWINNEY: I just think more perseverance might be the word. He's a guy that just makes you smile because I've been here with him the whole time, and I just know where he was when he came in here, and I know how hard he's worked. I know the price that he's paid, and I know the patience that he's had to display and the perseverance of mentally pushing through when he maybe wanted to give up at some point, whether he was ever going to be able to be the starter here and all those type of things. Just really proud of him. Last year was really when he kind of turned the corner. He was very productive for us, and it's just good to see him seize the moment with this opportunity that he has, especially on a stage like he had Saturday night. Just proud of him, and he's a great example to a lot of these young players that you may not‑‑ maybe you're not quite where you need to be as a young player, but if you put in the work, you stay committed and disciplined and focusing on the right things and things you can control, it's all about how you finish. Q. How would you evaluate the job of the defense now that you've had a chance to go back and look at it again? DABO SWINNEY: I thought our front played outstanding the whole game. I was really, really pleased with how our defensive line played. I thought outside of just a few critical mistakes, our backers played very well. We had a couple mistakes. On the big long touchdown we just overran it, and that was really‑‑ even most of the big plays, none of them were really on our defensive line. I just thought they did an outstanding job, very consistent for four quarters, backers were solid. And for the most part we've much better in the secondary than we were this time last year. We had more guys in position where they needed to be. Still got some communication things that we've got to improve upon. Had a few mental errors on the backside, but had some competitive plays on the ball. So again, it was a really good team, great quarterback, a lot of weapons, and I thought for the first game it was very good. We had a few big plays and some things that we've got to fix, but it's a good start, not anywhere near what we want to be, but a very good start for our defense. Q. I know the win Saturday was big for your program. Is it also a statement for the ACC and this elite league that continues to play these kind of games to elevate its profile? DABO SWINNEY: Well, I don't know about a statement for the ACC. I just think it's a statement for Clemson. I mean, I always tell people, it's not about the league, it's about the program. You know, that's just what I believe. I mean, you can be a bad team in a really good league and say, hey, but we're in this league. Well, that's great, but your team isn't very good. To me it's more about the program. That's really what I'm more concerned with. All the rest of that stuff, that all takes care of itself as long as you're taking care of the things that you control. But there's no doubt that we have to play games like that to give ourselves a chance to compete nationally. The SEC plays games like that; that's something that they do. Alabama last year, heck, played up in Michigan, played Virginia Tech this year. That's just something I think most of the top schools do. You've got to play somebody outside of your conference that is a very worthy opponent, and not only play them but you've got to win those games. You're not going to win them all, but you've got to win your fair share of them. I don't know about any type of statement. All it is is just, hey, Clemson is a good program, and we've come a long way in four years and still got a ways to go, but I think we've made good progress. Q. I think you've said that you wanted to run more plays this week than you did last Saturday. Given the outcome, how much of a necessity is that really, or is it something to just really give your team a goal to shoot for this week? DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, we just have a goal always going into the game on the type of‑‑ the number of snaps that we want to have. I think we were upper 70s last week, but we had two three‑and‑outs, so that cost us six snaps, and then we had several dropped balls that cost us some more snaps. I think we're right on track, we just need to clean up some execution a little bit and make sure that we're continuing to play at the pace we want to play at late in the game and clean it up a little bit more. But as far as a goal, yeah, it's a goal every week to have a certain number, but as long as we're winning the game, that's all that matters. I don't care if we got 50 snaps; the objective is to win the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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