Clemson's Dabo Swinney 'Set the Tone' During Press Conference

Around the 30-minute mark during his Tuesday press conference, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney stopped mid-thought.

“Wow, y’all got me going today,” Swinney said.

Members of the media laughed, but Swinney was as straight-faced as ever. His demeanor throughout the entire 50-minute press conference was a certain sense of urgency.

Swinney is known for his speeches, whether he’s preaching a sermon or going off on tangents after being asked a particular question.

Both occurred yesterday.

He came through the doors of the team room inside the Clemson indoor facility and wanted to set the tone for the week early.

“I’ll just tell you right out of the gate, this is a very, very good football team that we’re getting ready to play,” Swinney said. “And if anybody says anything different, then you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about. I cannot say that enough to everybody in this room."

“If there’s any inclination that people like to create that this team right here is not a legit contender for our division, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Let me just set the tempo for the meeting right there.”

Within the first few moments of the press conference, before he was even asked a question, Swinney set the tempo.

There was a collective exhale from Clemson fans last Saturday night as they flipped their calendars from that gauntlet of a September to October. In July, not many of them believed that their team would make it through September unscathed.

But here they are, sitting pretty at 5-0 as the second-ranked team in the country.

After that night in Blacksburg, it felt like Clemson had turned a corner in its season after beating its third top 15 team.

Clemson’s opponents in October (Wake Forest, Syracuse, Georgia Tech) are a combined 9-5 overall and on paper shouldn’t give the Tigers as tough of a test as their opponents from September.

Don’t tell that to Swinney, who mentally prepares for every game as if it’s the biggest game of the season. Swinney is looking for his team to not get complacent after their 5-0 October.

“What I’m looking for in our team is maturity. I’m looking for a team that will match that intensity, match that precision, match that discipline and heart because that’s what it’s gonna take.”

Maybe Swinney was trying to send a message to his players rather than the media that this team still has a long way to go.

Swinney continued the press conference and started fielding some questions. He was asked if he thought Ryan Carter would be as good as he is right now when he recruited him. He had been asked a question before about other players this year, and this time he was annoyed.

“I don’t know why y’all think we recruit people that we don’t think can play,” Swinney said. “Damn right.”

Swinney was referring back to Carter’s recruitment during his 6-minute answer. There were a lot of rumors that Clemson was only recruiting Carter, a not so highly rated prospect so that Clemson could sign Robert Nkemdiche.

“(We) would’ve committed him a long time earlier if it hadn’t have been for all the ridiculous narrative in the recruiting world of, ‘We’re only going to offer this guy and get some other player.’

“We don’t operate that way. Those guys can go other places. We don’t operate that way here. We evaluate and we recruit the guys that we think fit our program, and we don’t care if they have zero offers or a thousand offers.”

Swinney was impressed with Carter when he was in high school after he saw him run down future Florida State Seminole start Dalvin Cook. He also compared the cornerback to former Clemson player Grady Jarrett.

Carter didn’t hear what Swinney said, but was happy to hear that his coach always has his back.

“I know a lot of people probably didn’t believe in me or didn’t think I’d have a chance to play at this level and stuff like that,” Carter said smiling. “Just knowing that he kept the faith and he believed in me that I would develop into a good player is very beneficial for me to hear that.”

More players that got some scrutiny when they were recruited were Judah and J.D. Davis. There were rumors on your average message boards that the Davis twins were only being recruited because of their father, Jeff Davis, a member of the Clemson Ring of Honor.

The twins weren’t highly rated recruits, but Swinney still saw their work ethic early on. He, again, wanted to address how he felt about how fans can be so mean to recruits.

“Isn’t that awful some of the comments that young people have to put up with because of ignorance and people’s own agendas? It’s sad,” Swinney said emphatically.

“I’ve watched them grow up. Sometimes you see things that other people don’t see. We don’t have two better winners on this team than J.D. and Judah Davis.”

Wrapping up the morning, Swinney was asked about the tragic events that occurred in Las Vegas the night before and how he addresses those types of things with his team. His answer was very passionate.

“There’s a lot going on in this world. Every day for us is a life-teaching moment. Every. Single. Day. And the one thing I tell our guys, in my opinion, what the country wants, what a lot of people want in their life, we have right here. I see it every day.”

Needless to say that Swinney was fired up on Tuesday morning for a hard week ahead. With every question he was asked, he wanted to set the tone for not only the week but the rest of October and the year.

Swinney urged fans to not get complacent with what happened in September. The Tigers can’t afford to sleepwalk through the rest of the season.

In fact, they need to wake up.

“We need to wake up and show up and be ready to go, and that’s the football team, that’s our fans, that’s Tiger Walk, that’s everything.”