SUPPORT US. OUR SITE IS 100% OWNED BY A 2002 CLEMSON GRADUATE→ Get THREE Months of CST+ for just $1.00
Editor’s note: Rough transcript of Dabo Swinney’s Monday Teleconference. Light edits for clarity and flow.
Opening Statement:
“Just a quick recap from the game — obviously, incredibly disappointing. And from a big-picture standpoint, we just can’t seem to play complementary football. First half defense really struggled; offensively, we were rolling pretty good with limited opportunities. And then we just got in too much of a hole — again, a slow start. In the second half, we just can’t put it all together right now.
There are some positives for sure. I know everybody looks at the record, and that’s all anybody thinks about. But there are still positives. We’ve got a great group of young men. Certainly not the record we wanted, envisioned, or worked for, so there’s a lot of disappointment.
I’m really proud of these guys for how they’ve hung in there. This is certainly a tough moment for us, but it’ll make us better. I really like the response from our guys. Again, I believe this is not what we expected, but I don’t think it caught God by surprise. That’s just what I believe. We’ll rally — the open date’s coming at a really good time for us.”
“We’re not going to win the national championship this year. We’ve won three in 130 years. But that doesn’t mean we can’t win the season. Doesn’t mean we can’t finish well. Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the journey — because that’s what this is. It’s a journey, and this is a tough time. But a lot of great days are ahead, and tough times make you appreciate the good ones even more.
From a football standpoint, we’ve got to find a way to put it all together. There are a lot of good things, but consistently getting it all together has been hard. Football is hard. It’s the greatest team sport there is. Getting 11 guys to give it all they’ve got and do their job consistently is where it starts.”
On what needs to change during the bye week: “I’ve got to find a way to get our team playing better — starting faster, playing to our potential. Nobody wants to hear, ‘we’re a couple plays away.’ But momentum is a big thing. Confidence too. There’s a lot of disappointment, and that affects things. We’ve got to focus on doing the little things better, putting guys in position to execute with more precision, and playing complementary football.
We’ve lost the turnover margin two games in a row. We’re not turning it over. Poor first half defensively. By the time the offense got the ball, we were down 10-0. We’ve played from behind just about every game, except for the LSU game. That LSU first half and Troy’s second half were probably our best complementary stretches.
So our focus is just on getting these guys to play better. That starts with us as coaches.
On whether there is confidence that Christopher Vizzina can make the layups that Klubnik seems to be missing: “Yes, there’s confidence, but there’s confidence in Cade. He’s still our starter. Everybody’s got to be better — coaches, Cade, defense, receivers, everybody. I definitely have confidence in CV. Who knows what the future holds, but right now Cade is still our starter.”
On evaluating Garrett Riley as a playcaller: “Those are things you evaluate as the season goes on. There are things everybody can do better, but also a lot of plays that were there that we didn’t execute. We’ve got good people. We all have to be better. I love our staff, and it’s my job to help them be better and find a way to finish strong.”
On why practice performances haven’t translated to the games: “I don’t know. It just hasn’t translated yet. We’ve got a lot of games left. Hopefully, we can play our way out of it. Execution, disappointment, maybe some failure early. Maybe some guys not handling the noise well, playing tight. It just hasn’t worked like we wanted.”
The full audio with additional information is provided above. If you like our content, please consider supporting our site for just $63.17 a year!
