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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 25, 2013Dabo SwinneyDABO SWINNEY: Good morning. Glad to get back on a normal schedule for us this week, coming off a Thursday night game. It's homecoming for us, and always a special week here. Wake Forest is typical Wake Forest; well‑coached, present a lot of challenges. Offensively they've got six seniors back, six starters. They've played a lot of football for them starting with their quarterback and running back, and they've got a great wide out in Campanaro. Defensively same thing; they've got a lot of guys returning, and with seven starters back, they play incredibly hard. Whitlock, No.50, is second in the country right now for tackles for loss, and he's also got three sacks. They move around, do a lot of different things that can present problems for you offensively, so we've got our hands full with a very well‑coached Wake Forest team, and look forward to getting back here at home and getting in front of our home crowd, and hopefully we can continue to improve as a team. We've got several guys that are banged up, so we've got a lot of guys that are going to have to step up and fill some key roles for us this week. Q. Did that game Thursday, most people would say 26 points in a heartbeat for their offense, but did that give you some pause, some cause for concern at all? DABO SWINNEY: No, no. We'll take‑‑ all we want is one more point than the opponent. When we don't have that, then I get concerned. The objective is to win the game, not score a certain amount of points. Yeah, we missed some opportunities to score some points, but it's a team game, and thankfully our defense made some key plays and we had some key contributions from our special teams, a couple of huge field goals in that game from Chandler. Again, the objective is to win the game. The thing that I do like about our team is we're 3‑0, and there's several other 3‑0 teams out there, but we have two really hard‑fought battles under our belt with Georgia and then going on the road in that environment against an undefeated team in NC State. I think that's great experience for our team to have to handle adversity and challenges early in the season like that. I think that will eventually pay off for us. Q. Wake has had a stingy year this year defensively. What's the biggest headache that poses for you? DABO SWINNEY: Well, they're very well‑coached. They've got a very good scheme. They're a 3‑4 odd type front, a lot of movement. They don't sit in one spot, a lot of slanting and angling and twists, and they bring pressure. It starts with No.50. He's not a very big guy, their nose tackle, but man, he plays big, and just plays‑‑ I love to watch him play. I love watching him on film every time I get a chance to see Wake Forest on tape. He is a fun player to watch because he plays the game with such passion. They've got two starters back up front, two starters back at linebacker. But I'll tell you what, their secondary is very impressive. No.7, No.9, those guys have played a lot of football. They're three‑year starters for them, and each year going into this game as I study them, I just come away so impressed. I mean, they're very fundamentally sound. They do a great job with their eyes. If you go out there and you're running routes with bad technique, bad fundamentals, it's going to be picks because these guys are very, very clued in into what you're trying to do and do a great job of game planning each and every week. Same thing, they've got a senior safety No.17 who's an outstanding player. They've got good players at each spot defensively, and then their scheme is a challenge for you. You have to really communicate well and everybody be on the same page, not just in the passing game but in the run game and be able to get everybody targeted so you have a chance to have a successful play. Q. A question about Tajh: Just in general he hasn't turned the ball over yet. How have you had him be so effective in both managing the ball and moving the offense downfield this season? DABO SWINNEY: Well, I mean, he's just being Tajh. He's a third‑year starter, and that's what we expect. I mean, he's still got a lot of room for improvement. He's got to play better in several areas, but the one thing that he's doing a great job of, as you mentioned there, is taking care of the ball and being the game manager. I mean, that is huge for us. We've got to have that to continue so that we can have the type of season‑‑ because if we can continue to win the turnover margin, we're going to be a hard team to beat. That's usually when we have problems, it's when we've lost that turnover margin. And that is a key. You look at our two losses last year, same thing. Big plays and the turnover margin, those are two huge stats for us that we pay close attention to, and it obviously starts with your quarterback and doing a great job of making good decisions and not putting the ball in jeopardy. So far he's done a nice job there. Q. Did you expect this type of impact out of him when you first started recruiting him all those years ago? DABO SWINNEY: Certainly. You know, he was the guy that I felt like we could build the program around. He and I kind of came in together, if you will. He was my first quarterback to sign. I got the job, and we went out and signed him. I knew that we were going to have some growing pains and all that kind of stuff, but he's turned out to be exactly what I hoped he would be: A winner, a great leader, a humble young man, and a college graduate. He's achieved a lot of things. He's led us to division titles, ACC Championship, double‑digit win type seasons, and he deserves a lot of that credit because he has certainly become the leader of our program. I hate he's got to leave here in a few months, but he's laid a foundation here that I think will allow us to sustain some success. Q. Talk about Boyd as quarterback, about his growth of being the quarterback for Clemson over the years. DABO SWINNEY: Well, he's just matured in every area that you can as a player. First of all, he's grown so much with his knowledge of the game and of the position. He's grown fundamentally, technically. He's really developed into a great leader and has a command of what we're trying to do offensively in every area, whether it's the run game, passing game, protections, all that stuff. He's gotten better and better. He's a very confident guy, but he's paid a big price each year to learn from his mistakes and to go work even harder to try to improve. He's just been a steady work in progress, and really proud of how he has developed. He's still got it all in front of him, though. I think he's going to continue to develop this season and beyond, and he's a guy you're going to see play for many years to come. Q. At 3‑0 what is one thing you still have to work on to have a perfect game during one of these games? DABO SWINNEY: Well, we've got a lot of things we've got to work on, but the biggest thing for us right now is just being a little more efficient offensively in some areas where we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot with a critical error or somebody not being on the same page from a protection standpoint, some missed plays that we've got to make in order to have the kind of season that we want to have. We've left a little bit out there in all three games that‑‑ and again, the good news is we've found a way to win games. So that's one thing offensively that we've got to do. And then over on the defensive side we've got to continue to improve our tackling. I think we've improved in a lot of areas, but we've got to continue to improve our tackling, especially containing and leveraging the football, not letting people get outside us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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