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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 27, 2013Dabo SwinneyCOACH SWINNEY: I'd like to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. Just a special privilege to have the opportunity to do what we do. Hope everybody has a great day tomorrow with your families and loved ones. Also I want to make an announcement and a congratulations. Today at 10:00, I believe, the ACA has announced Chad Morris has been named the assistant coach of the year. What a great honor. Just can't be a more deserving guy. All of our coaches, in my opinion, are coaches of the year. I'm so happy for Chad. It's a great honor for him, a great compliment to our staff and to those guys, Tony, Danny Pearman, Robbie Caldwell, Jeff Scott. Really happy for Chad Morris. Again, just a great, great honor for him. But excited about this game this week, the last week for us heading into our post‑season. It's definitely our biggest game and our biggest challenge to this point. South Carolina is obviously a great team. They've had another great year. It's an exciting matchup in that first time ever to have a top‑10 matchup, I think that's a real compliment to both schools for where the programs are. This is a really talented offense. Defensively as good a front as there is out there, in my opinion. Playing very well. Again, great opportunity for us. Just going to be a huge challenge going on the road. We're going to have to play very well. Our focus, again, is trying to finish out the very best we can, continue to stay in the mix, provide ourselves with the best possible post‑season opportunities. With that I'll take your questions. Q. Sorry to get off subject, but I'm trying to ask a couple coaches from around the country sort of their views on what Alabama, a school close to your heart in ways, has done over these last five years, how impressive it is, whether they could go down maybe as the greatest dynasty in football if they can finish it out this season. COACH SWINNEY: I think coaches probably have a greater appreciation than anybody because we all know how hard it is to win any game, much less win as consistently as they have. They've been very dominant. They've obviously got great tradition and history there. They have recruited at a very high level. It starts with having great players. They certainly have great players and great depth, and they coach them up. It's been an impressive run, that's for sure. We'll see how they finish. But if they are able to go on and finish, win it out, win three national championships in a row, they certainly deserve to be in the conversation for whatever dynasties are out there from years past because that is incredibly hard to do once, twice, three times in a row. Hat goes off to them. Q. Third‑down defense, you've preached it all year long.  Especially this game. It's been so critical. When you look back at what happened in last year's games, what needs to improve to get off the field on third down? COACH SWINNEY: We got to win the competitive matchups. It's not just getting off. We have to do a good job offensively on third down staying on the field, too. We were really poor in this game last year on both sides, to be honest with you. We missed some huge opportunities. The biggest thing, it just comes down to execution, not just knowledge of our plan, but applying the knowledge on game day. Comes down to matchups. They won some huge matchups on us last year in some critical situations. You have to tackle. You have to play really, really well on the perimeter. It was obviously a huge factor in the game. They were over 50% on third down. Most of the time if you're really poor on third down, you probably don't win games. Then you throw in the fact that you turn it over, you don't win the turnover margin, it's hard to win against bad teams much less a great team like we're getting ready to face. We got to execute our assignments better, play smarter, win those competitive matchups on both sides of the ball in the trenches. We need to get pressure on the quarterback, also on the perimeter. Guys making plays on offense, our line protecting our quarterback, and then defensively our secondary competing. Q. Have you noticed your offensive line taking it personally the way South Carolina has had their defensive front the last couple years? COACH SWINNEY: I don't notice anything. We haven't played the game. All I notice is our guys are practicing like they have been all year, practicing well, working their tails off to try to go execute the game plan and play the very best they can this week. That's the bottom line. You can be all mad if you went on Tuesday or Wednesday, but we got to get our plan down and go play. Our guys know that we've gotten out‑played. It really has nothing to do with this year. It's about what we've done. This year is a different team, we've had an excellent year. I think we're playing with a lot of confidence right now. This game will come down to the trenches. We got to run the ball, protect our quarterback, stop the run, get pressure on their quarterback. It's pretty simple when it comes down to it. Getting it done is a whole different deal. Q. I know Williams‑Brice and Death Valley are the two most impressive places to play college football. Does the home field have much impact in this rivalry? COACH SWINNEY: I mean, it can, depending on how the game is going. It certainly can, especially early. I know here at home, when we get early momentum sometimes, it can really affect the crowd. Maybe late in the game, in a tight ballgame, the crowd can affect maybe a procedure penalty or something like that, cause the other team to lose some focus. That's always a challenge when you're on the road at a very loud place. For us, the crowd doesn't play the game. We've got to go out there and be really focused on our assignments, playing the way we know we have to play to give ourselves a chance to win. If you play the game the way you're capable of playing it, hopefully you can frustrate their crowd. It can work both ways. But that early momentum I think is very critical in a game like this. Q. There are four ACC/SEC matchups this weekend. You guys are the headliner of that. Could you talk about what it would mean to do well. You started off the season beating one of the SEC powers. Can you talk about the ACC reputation versus the SEC, what this weekend can mean to the ACC. COACH SWINNEY: I think a lot of that has been addressed, to be honest with you. People talk about it all the time. I think the ACC has produced a national championship contender this year with Florida State. I think we're a team that's still in the mix. Anything can happen. I think we're one of the best teams in the country. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Been in the top 10 from start to finish. That's what we've needed as a conference. That's what the SEC has done. They've had one or two teams each year. That's kind of the case with them this year. This year it's Alabama and it's Auburn, their two dominant teams in the league. The head‑to‑head matchups, 2‑2, ours was a top‑five matchup. Georgia, they had a catastrophe over there and still had a good year. They deserve a lot of credit for being able to get done what they've gotten done with the loss of superstars from that football team at the very beginning of the year. It will be great. We want to win those matchups. Hopefully we can take care of our part. Going back to last year, I think this is our fourth top‑10 SEC team in a row. We've had our share. South Carolina last year, LSU, Georgia, South Carolina this year. Seems like every time we play one of these SEC teams, it's a top‑10 team. I think we're 2‑1 in the last three. We want to get to 3‑1. That's what we're worried about. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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