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Q: How much has Antonio Williams been able to practice the last two days?
Dabo Swinney: Just a little. We’ll put out an availability report...I guess the first one goes out tomorrow. When does it go out, Ross? Oh, yeah, Georgia Tech week. We’ll put one out Georgia Tech week, but we’ll let you know later on in the week where we are.
Q: How much has Khalil Barnes been able to go this week?
Dabo Swinney: Yeah, same answer.
Q: Y’all were able to rotate pretty heavily on the defensive line Saturday. Can you just maybe reflect on the benefits of that through a game, through a season, and just the confidence y’all have in that many guys?
Dabo Swinney: Yeah, that’s how you get really good, when you can have good depth in the D-line. And they played well, they really did. I mean, they played a heck of a ballgame.
Good to see Jahiem Lawson — I think Jahiem might have had a TFL, maybe his first play. Cade Denhoff did some good things, getting Vic Burley in there. Tre Williams got in there some. We got some good depth, Champ Thompson, that’s really coming along.
I thought DeMonte Capehart and Stephiylan Green, Peter Woods, T.J. Parker, all them guys. I mean, like I said, that’s a really good football team. The first play we had him down, and somehow he came out, and outside of that play, it was 2.8 a carry for 58 minutes. So that is a huge improvement from where we were last year — well, last game, right, when we saw Texas go up and down the field on us in the run game.
So I was really proud of the D-line and our linebackers. I thought the linebackers played really well. That’s an area we want to get a little more rotation going, but those guys up front, we got some other guys too that didn’t get quite as much opportunity — just nature of the first game and all that. But you got some other guys that I think you’ll see rolling in there as well, that are right there. Like a guy like Darien Mayo, for example.
Q: On Ian Schieffelin getting back available this week:
Dabo Swinney: Yeah, tight end. I mean, just his position. He’s just working his way back. He had a really good camp. He’s made a ton of progress. And so he’s just one of our tight ends that’s waiting on an opportunity.
Q: On if Walker Parks practiced this week?
Dabo Swinney: Yeah, a lot more than last week. He’s gotten pretty good work in, and he’s getting better and better every day.
Q: On OL Elyjah Thurmon and Harris Sewell throughout Saturday’s game. How do you think they both did in their share of snaps?
Dabo Swinney: Did fine. Elyjah had the one pressure, but pretty good. For a first game, I thought they were… nobody was good enough to win the game, but those guys did a solid job for us.
Q: What’s the depth of the offensive line look like right now?
Dabo Swinney: Yeah, well, we got the seven that we’ve talked a lot about. So the eighth guy would be Brayden Jacobs. That’s the next guy. Excited — he got in there a little bit. He was in there on the goal line. He was kind of scheduled in our heavy package, but in fact made a huge extra-effort play on that touchdown. He’s the next guy for sure.
And then you got Rock — and you got Dietrick Pennington. Those guys are right there. Easton Ware — I can’t remember if I told y’all, did I tell you about Easton Ware’s going to be out? So Easton was right there, he and Brayden. Easton, he’s been battling a shoulder, and we were going to try to get him through the year, but it came out again. So they got to go ahead and do surgery on him. Easton will be out for the year. He’ll redshirt. He’s a true freshman, so he was one of those guys right there in the mix.
But the eighth guy is Brayden, and he’s on his way. Ian Reed, we just got him back. He was out for a week or so, but just getting him back going as well. They’re all competing.
Q: On what have you seen from Cade Klubnik and his response, and are you satisfied with what he’s done so far in practice?
Dabo Swinney: Yeah, I mean, exactly what I thought I would see: a guy go back to work. It’s not his first rodeo. He’s a very self-aware kid. He knows that he really didn’t play well, and there was nothing to predict that. Like I said, just had a bad day to have a bad day. Back to work, owns it, right back to the basics. He’ll bounce back. Just great leadership. That’s what I’ve seen.
Q: Dabo, Jeadyn Lukus, 41 snaps. Given how much he missed during camp, I’m guessing you had to be happy with what you saw out of him.
Dabo Swinney: Yeah. He missed a lot of camp, but he got the last couple weeks and had a little bit of live work — not a ton. But yeah, he had one miss on a cover-2 on the support on the edge. We didn’t have an edge player on that; that was on him. I thought he did a good job, and it’s good to see him just being out there. Actually had a nice little play today as well in a two-minute situation.
So he’s definitely a guy. Those three guys give us a really good group. We feel like we’ve got some good depth there. Obviously, that was a game the other night, you’re kind of living and dying on every play down to the last one, but you’ll see those guys all have some opportunity as we go through this long season ahead.
