Swinney on La. Tech Coach Sonny Cumbie: 'I’ll be pulling for him forever'

Opening Comments:

“I appreciate our fans. What an awesome environment. That was really cool. 20th season here, and to be able to experience-- it was already a great atmosphere coming down the hill and all that-- but man, that was pretty cool. Just great energy out there.”

"Really proud of our team. We are getting better. We are not a great team yet-- because great teams don't do some of the things we did tonight. But these guys will compete."

“Defensively, we ended up having line six guys out. Just great experience for a bunch of young guys in critical situations. A lot that we’ve got to improve on. We are doing a great job against the run-- just got to keep improving.”

“We wanted to get Cade (Klubnik) as much time, and we wanted to get some of those 2s in there, and we kind of fiddle around a little bit. I didn’t like how we were playing, and the cool thing is we put the 1s back in, and we went right back down the field.”

"I think we had 12 pass break-ups-- that's the most we've had since I've been head coach."

“I love how we are competing. No sacks again this week-- the one sack that was on D.J. No turnovers. All three backs found the endzone. Man, (Will) Shipley was awesome. That’s the first time since at least 1950 that we’ve had a multiple touchdown guy three games in a row. Then Beaux Collins three touchdowns-three games, that hasn’t happened since Sammy Watkins in 2011.”

“Tough road trip this week. Wake Forest is the Atlantic Division Champion until somebody does something about it-- that’s going to start this week. Our next goal is to win the division, and if we are going to win it, we’ve got to go to Wake and play a heck of a ball game.”

On Sonny Cumbie and La. Tech: "I want to say how encouraged tonight by the class of Coach Cumbie and La. Tech. It’s really encouraging. We hear so much bad. We don't often get to hear the good. There is a lot of good, but unfortunately, the bad gets the headlines. As a human being, I was super encouraged tonight. Of course, Coach (Cumbie) came out there and had an Ella Strong shirt on. Then he gave me a letter that he wrote Bryan, then after the game, he gave me a letter from the entire time. The entire team took the time to write Bryan and his family a letter. Man, that’s everything that is good about college football. I’ve never met Coach Cumbis, but I'll be a fan of his for the rest of his career. As I told him after the game, this right here is why he’s going to be successful. That tells me how he’s wired-- how he thinks. I’ll be pulling for him forever."

On his conversation with the team at the half:

“It felt different than it was. We missed a few plays. If we do what we need to do, it’s 21-6 and feels a little different. I just told them, ‘it’s four quarters, guys. Let’s don't get frustrated. Let’s go play. Let’s see if we can clean up some things in the 3rd quarter.’ We go right out turnover, turnover, downs-- touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. That’s complimentary football-- you guys got a chance to see what it looks like.”

Watch the full press conference with Coach Swinney at the top of the page.