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COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SEMIFINAL AT THE CAPITAL ONE ORANGE BOWL: CLEMSON VS OKLAHOMA

December 28, 2015

Samaje Perine

Miami Gardens, Florida

Q. Did you get in any good hunting over Christmas break?
SAMAJE PERINE: No, I didn't really get a chance to.

Q. Too much family stuff?
SAMAJE PERINE: Yeah. Went back home, didn't get really any alone time, so whatever.

Q. Alone time is important to you?
SAMAJE PERINE: Sometimes, yeah, but they hadn't seen me in a long time, so I understand.

Q. How do you feel physically?
SAMAJE PERINE: I feel great. Got some time off, had a couple of good days of practice, and got a little bit of a sweat going. Just able to get my legs back underneath me, and ready to go.

Q. Were you ever 100 percent after that OSU injury last year?
SAMAJE PERINE: This season I was.

Q. But going into the bowl game were you really 100 percent last year?
SAMAJE PERINE: No, not really.

Q. Just a high ankle sprain just lingered and lingered?
SAMAJE PERINE: Yeah.

Q. Is that one of those things that you deal with a lot? I know in high school you carried the ball, too. Are those just things that happen?
SAMAJE PERINE: Yeah, when you get the ball that many times, you know it's bound to happen, it's just a matter of time. You just have to be prepared for it and know how to play through it, or when it hurts too bad, know when to tell the coach that you've had enough and that you have to sit out a couple games.

Q. Is that tough to do, though? I know you don't mind the contact, you don't mind those things. Is it tough for you to make that call, to say, hey, look, I've got to come out of the game?
SAMAJE PERINE: It's always tough. You hate to see your teammates out there giving it their all and you're just sitting on the sideline. That's always tough. But there comes a time where you just have to know when your body can't take any more and to have to take a break. I mean, it sucks, but it has to be done.

Q. How much pain were you in in the second half of that TCU game this year?
SAMAJE PERINE: Oh, man. Yeah, it hurt a little bit.

Q. A little bit?
SAMAJE PERINE: Yeah. It's just one of those things that I knew right away as soon as I went down that it was going to hurt for a while. But I couldn't let that affect my game. I just had to get back out there and do whatever I could.

Q. When you look back on the season, it kind of looks like they did everything they could to save you for this stretch starting with Baylor. Say in the K-State game you only had 13 carries. They got you out of there pretty quick. Did they talk to you about that?
SAMAJE PERINE: I mean, they did a little bit, but once you're winning a game like that, you don't want to keep your starters in and have something happen to them where it's a couple weeks out or a season-ending injury. They told me that once we were up big, there's no reason for me to stay in the game, let everybody else get carries, and I was all for it. First of all, I'm not going to argue with my coaches. Whatever they tell me to do, I'm going to do it, and second of all, I want to see all of us be good. I want to see the opportunity for my teammates to get out there and make something happen. I'm all for it, and they did.

Q. How nice has it been having Joe this year just to take some pressure off?
SAMAJE PERINE: It's been really nice. I've said it all throughout the season. We feed off of each other, and to have him back there knowing what he's capable of, it's comforting. I don't feel like there's much of a drop-off, if any. There's probably not. There's probably some games when he's in the game or when both of us are in the game, it's even better, because defenses don't really know what to expect. It's fun to watch him do what he does, and it's fun to play with him when we're both back there. It's just a great time.

Q. After that Texas game, I remember everybody was in there asking you guys what was wrong, especially with the running game, and you seemed to handle it really well. Behind the scenes was there a little bit of a frustration level there, not being able to run the ball effectively, and now that you guys have run it as well as anybody in college football, can you talk about what that time was like for you?
SAMAJE PERINE: I mean, I wouldn't say it was frustration. I mean, we just had to -- we had to settle down. We knew what we were capable of, but we had to have our O-line know what they were capable of. Everything starts with them, and once they settled down, they just got better week by week. They still hadn't reached their full potential, and once they do that, it's going to be deadly.

We knew that it was going to take some time because we have some very young guys up there, and they didn't have the experience.

Q. You knew that Drew and Orlando would come around?
SAMAJE PERINE: Oh, yeah, definitely.

Q. And Jonathan, and that would eventually work itself out?
SAMAJE PERINE: Yeah, of course.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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