Dabo Swinney Press Conference notes: Wofford

Notes from Dabo Swinney’s press conference previewing the upcoming matchup with Wofford.

-- This weekend’s game against Wofford is Military Appreciation Day. A general is coming in to speak with the team this week. I haven't been to all of them, but I imagine that nobody does it better than Clemson. Just always a great week and it’s hard to believe we only got two home games left.

-- Look forward to playing Wofford. Obviously a local school here. I’m sure they will bring a lot of fans here and it’ll be a lot of fun. We play one of these games every year and it’s a great opportunity for both teams. Excited about Wofford, but not excited about trying to stop them. They are very well-coached. Everybody thinks of Wofford and the option, but they have a unique way of getting to it. They have a lot of different personnel groupings and sometimes line up in the shotgun in the spread. Everything goes through their running backs. They are basically a three-back offense all the time. They force you to be really disciplined. They don’t do too much and they have players that can make you miss in space.

-- You look at them statistically, there are 125 FCS schools and they are 16th in scoring offense, 24th in scoring defense, 2nd in rushing offense, 13th rushing defense, 11th in total offense, and 11th in total defense. This is a really good FCS team. For us, it’s about playing well and maintaining the momentum that we have. After eight games, we’re having an excellent season. We’re getting into November now, which is our championship phase. It’s an exciting time.

Defensively, this is the best we’ve been in a long time after eight games. We’ve developed good depth and good chemistry on this team. Offensively, we’ve never had an offense that has averaged 250 rushing and passing yards per game. Never. Ever. You’ve got a lot of these games where these fourth quarters have gotten away and we could’ve skewed the stats even more so than what they are. We play a lot of guys and that’s a part of developing our team.

We are in a good place heading into November, but everybody has to be just a little bit better. Man, the air gets a little colder and thinner the higher you climb. You gotta have the guts to press forward. Glad to see this team continue to work.

You don’t play the game on paper. Plenty of history between FCS teams beating FBS teams.

On what Swinney remembers from Wofford 2011:

-- I remember getting booed at halftime. Maybe we were up by a field goal. Everybody telling coach Chad Morris to go back to high school. Heard that a couple times. I remember them having the most open guy in college football history. He backpedaled to catch it and then backpedaled to the end zone for 50 yards. Could’ve won an ESPY that year for most open wide out. That was a tough day.

-- We have had pretty good practices all year. All except that North Carolina week. We had a bad practice on Wednesday as a defense. On Thursday we had our worst practice as an offense. Last week was very good. Defensively there was really good focus on that end. We are just getting better. We know more, more knowledgeable. A lot of guys have developed. Guys are kind of over the hump a little bit.

On Davis Allen and other potential redshirts:

-- He’s gained my trust. I’d play him any situation. It took a while to get him healthy and he missed all of camp basically so he had to catch up mentally. But physically, he’s an incredibly trustworthy guy. He’s a big strong kid, has ball skills, fundamentally sound, good technique. He had key blocks last week and did a good job on screens in space. He’s just got a lot of natural stuff that comes to the table. He’s just moving with more confidence in everything he does.

That’s allowed us to hit the pause button on Jaelyn Lay a little bit. It’s hard to get them all the type of reps we really want. The guy that has changed the plan is Luke Price. He does a lot of dirty work and is a good football player. Incredibly strong and an explosive power. We just didn’t know how he would project and how quickly he would transition from linebacker. Allen is just a little ahead of Lay and LAy could easily play. Played Lay in three games and where we are right now, trying to hold him. Brandon Galloway gets out of jail soon so trying to close that gap from now until the postseason. If we can get by, it’d be beneficial to our team but also Jaelyn. We are trying to save that game and be strategic.

-- Ruke Orohorhoro will not redshirt. He just recently played his fourth game and will not be held back. He’s a guy we feel like we need to have in there as some depth. Didn’t start playing football until 11th grade. He’s got good gifts, but he’s still learning.

On Tyler Davis handling an option offense:

-- He’ll be fine because he’s disciplined. He’s a guy you give him a job, he’s going to do his job. This is a do your job type of game. This is not one of those stat games where you get lulled to to do your job and then get in on someone else’s job. That’ll get you beat in a game like this. Tyler, that’s why he’s been a starter for us. Very knowledgeable and very disciplined. He’ll be just fine.

On how this year’s great defense has been built on the back 7:

-- Have been really good up front and bad on the back. We’ve had some great players up front around here, but it doesn’t really matter if you turn guys loose and are undisciplined in the backend. A good front can get neutralized in a heartbeat if you aren’t good on the backend. They can scheme you up and punish you if you aren’t disciplined. We had that one year, maybe 2015, where we were dysfunctionally good. One of the best defenses in the country, but 110th in the country and big plays given up. It goes hand-in-hand. This year, it has been huge, but those guys up front have really come through for us. Those guys have kind of been outside of the spotlight but have just been doing their job.

-- Denzel Johnson has a bruised shoulder and is day-to-day.

-- Xavier Thomas looked good last night and it was the first time they really ran him. You get into these concussion protocols, everyone responds differently and he got rocked pretty good by John Simpson on our inside drill. It shook him. It was on a Wednesday and he was out that game and then he just wasn’t able to go last week. You gotta be able to practice and he didn’t qualify to do it on Tuesday and Wednesday. The game has changed. We were pretty stupid back in the day. I got knocked out of a game and was back in practice a few days later. You just never know so you have to qualify to get back into practice. He couldn’t pass the protocol last week to be able to play. Hope to see where he is today. What he will do and how he’ll respond, I have no idea. I’m hopeful, but nothing is guaranteed.

-- Justin Foster, his replacement, has done well and we knew he was going to have a good year. He’s just a very steady guy and his confidence has grown. He was a linebacker so his transition has been great. KJ Henry took another step this past week. Justin Mascoll is on the right track. The fact that Thomas has been out a few games, the others in that group have gotten to step up.

On Deshaun Watson and seeing Clemson players play each other on Sunday:

-- He’s amazing. He’s a guy you better get on the ground because he’s going to make a play. I texted him beforehand and told him to watch out for Clelin Ferell. It was really cool to see those guys play and seeing former players doing well. I love seeing our former players just later on in life being successful. That was a lot of guys so that was pretty cool. President Clements went out there and we had one of our staff, Maddy Williams, she went out there and got some good pictures and video. Pretty cool moment for all those guys. Of course, Hunter Renfrow gets his first touchdown and that was awesome. A lot of good memories and I’m sure those guys had a fun time chit-chatting. They will always have that bond.

On Logan Rudolph:

-- He is dry, but hilarious. Literally hilarious. He just has this very serious demeanor all the time and is always about his business. But he’s hysterical. He’s creative. Every Monday we probably do a fun video to kick off our Mondays and he made the video. He also has an alter ego, Coach Stiff. We’ve been calling coach Stiff to go up and address the team after these past few games. He’s made a video making fun of the recruiting process. He’s a ball of intensity, but he’s got this whole other side to him.