Swinney on overruling play calls: 'I’ve definitely done that whenever I feel I need to'
Editor’s Note: The following is a cleaned-up transcript from portions of Dabo Swinney’s weekly radio show.
Q: Do you really take a lot of interest in watching North Carolina and TCU?
Dabo Swinney: “I’ll turn it on after this. We’re always here late on Monday night, so I’ll have it on—listen to it while I’m watching tape and getting ready. But yeah, I love any college football, for sure.”
Q: On the LSU loss...
Dabo Swinney: “I mean, that’s a combination of, defensively, just critical penalties that extended some drives, but mostly offensively not keeping drives going. Missed opportunities, critical mistakes. Really, we played well enough to win special teams and defensively, but offensively didn’t get it done.”
“We got a chance to throw a touchdown to Tyler Brown on the last play, and, for some reason, Cade scrambled out and didn’t have to, and we just don’t make a play there. But a lot of mistakes, just some critical errors. Again, it’s an opener; it’s a tough, tough game for both teams. I promise you LSU’s watching the tape going, “Oh boy, we’ve got a lot we’ve got to do to get better,” and had we made the play. So you’re a few plays—but that’s what those games come down to.”
Q: On what he knows about Troy, and what impresses you about them?
Dabo Swinney: “Troy is different than the Troy that I’ve seen in the past, which was a 10-personnel, elite receivers, quarterback slinging it all over the place, playing lightning fast. This is a team—they’ve got as many personnel groupings as we’ll probably see all year. I mean, multiple, multiple personnel groupings, lots of tight ends. Really a bunch of condensed bunch sets that they like to run out of, trying to create some different—some extra gaps and get you out of gaps. So they’re a very run-oriented, play-action, RPO screen-shot type of team off of the formations; a lot of movement, shifts, and again multiple tight ends. We don’t see this very often.”
Q: What specific changes does your offensive line face in creating space for the running backs, and how do you address those issues?
Dabo Swinney: “There wasn’t any change—we just didn’t commit to the run. I think we only had 15 run calls out of whatever—60 plays. So we just did a poor job as coaches. Adam Randall had one carry for six yards in the second half—his only carry. So just a poor job. If you’re going to put it all on the passing game, you’ve got to execute properly, and we didn’t do that. We really didn’t give the run game a chance outside of a few plays, so that’s on us as coaches.”
Q: Why do you think LSU’s defense was able to apply pressure the way they did?
Dabo Swinney: “Honestly, they got on a couple edges, but we just didn’t handle it. Really nothing that they did that we weren’t prepared for. We just didn’t execute. We didn’t make some of the basic reads that we’ve practiced, and did not execute properly. There wasn’t anything schematically or anything like that. We missed a corner cat, and that was a running back not picking that up. They had two sacks, and then Cade—he, I think for some reason he just kind of got flustered and he scrambled out of the pocket when he didn’t need to and created some pressure. We just didn’t do a good job of executing our plan going into the game.”
Q: How committed are you to continuing to get young guys in games?
Dabo Swinney: “When opportunity presents itself, we’re going to play our best players. I’m more interested in winning games and getting the best players in the game as opposed to just playing guys to play guys. If they play, it’s because they’ve earned it, and we trust them to go do the job. But they’ve got to do the job. Gideon’s first play of the game—we’ve got a well-blocked play, and he misses his block, so that kind of limited his opportunity after that. You’ve got to go in, you’ve got to get the job done.”
Q: On Will Heldt’s sack...
Dabo Swinney: “I’m proud of Will. He’s just really bought into who we are and the way we do things, and he’s a great teammate. The players really like Will, and it was good to see him make a big play. He started on punt team for us—did a great job there. He had great pressure on the field-goal block. He’s a kid that really plays incredibly hard, and he just had a ball.He loved the experience of being in the Valley, so it was awesome.”
Q: On punter Jack Smith...
Dabo Swinney: “He averaged 44 yards a punt, had one inside the 20, had a 50-plus yarder. For his first game, especially—I think his first punt was out of the end zone. I was hoping his first punt would be on a short field, but instead he was standing in the end zone and he launched it. Nice job. I thought it was a good start for him—good performance—and something that can build his confidence moving forward.”
Q: How often do you overrule what a play call is going to be offensively or defensively?
Dabo Swinney: “Our guys call the plays. I certainly always have the right to do that, and I’ve definitely done that whenever I feel like I need to over the years. That’s my job as a head coach. But we’ve got great coaches—I trust those guys to do it—and they’ve done a nice job.”
