Swinney, Heupel say teams are 'reset' and 'ready' for Orange Bowl matchup
THE MODERATOR: Welcome to the Capital One Orange Bowl head coaches' press conference.
DABO SWINNEY: Well, lucky day for y'all. I lost my voice, so I don't know where it went. Hopefully I'll find it soon. We've had a great week. Really grateful for all the people that work hard to put this on. It's a great experience for our staff, our families, our players, and I'm sure for both teams there's a lot of work that goes into it, practice areas, and also creating opportunities and experiences, whether it's great places to eat, being able to have a beach day and so forth. Got to go to a basketball game last night. Maybe I lost my voice cheering for the Heat, I don't know. But it's been a great trip. It's two great teams. Tennessee is one of the best teams in the country and has had an amazing year, so it should be a great game. We're thankful to be here and represent the league and represent Clemson in a place that's always been special to our fans and to college football. Thank you all for all that you have done to make it a great week, as well.
JOSH HEUPEL: Just want to say thank you to the Orange Bowl committee and South Florida. The hospitality for our program has been absolutely fantastic. It's been a great week. Before we got down here, having played in it and coached in it before, I was able to relate to our players and staff what this week is all about and the opportunities that they were going to have to see South Florida and have a great week of experiences. You guys have rolled out the orange carpet and shown us a great week. We appreciate everything so much and are certainly looking forward to the football game. It's been a long time since Tennessee has been here. Really proud of what this program has done in the last 23 months since our staff arrived. Really proud of our players. Playing a great opponent here tomorrow, and looking forward to that. We've seen a lot of the VFLs, former players, starting to make their way down here and I know our fan base is, too. It's great to see all those former players show up, and I'm looking forward to going out and competing with our football team tomorrow.
Q. Dabo, I know you joked about losing your voice last night at the Heat game, but if I'm not mistaken you and Spo have been friends for a minute here, and I'm wondering what the benefit is from coaches kind of learning tricks of the trade when it's different sports and different philosophies, and if you could share a little bit what you've shared with Spo and what you've learned from him.
DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, he's a guy I got to know. We have a mutual friend that connected us several years ago, and then he reached out, I don't know, four or five years ago or so and wanted to come to Clemson. That was a really cool thing. He flew in for a day with one of his assistants. Listen, it doesn't really matter what the sport is. If you're in leadership and you're dealing with people, there's so much you can learn, especially when you're in a competitive environment. Even though he's in the pros, especially with basketball, those guys are young guys, so we're dealing with young guys in competitive dynamics, leadership, culture, all those type of things. That's how we first got to know each other, and then we stayed in touch throughout the years. I actually came down with my son to a playoff game last May, and that was pretty cool. I'm 2-0 in '22. I let him know that last night. Brought some good mojo. But it was fun. But I think that's what coaches do is collaborate. I think our profession is really unique that way in that like we have our AFCA convention coming up in another week or so, and all these coaches come from all over. I mean thousands, and we talk and we meet. We literally played Ohio State one year, it was the craziest thing. I think it was the game -- I don't think it was this game. I think it was the game out in Arizona. Not long after that game we met as a staff, their staff, our staff, and we kind of got together and talked through the game. It was crazy. That's one of the cool things about our profession is we compete, but we collaborate and always have. It's not the case in most industries, right. Coke doesn't sit down with Pepsi at the end of the year and say, hey, boys, what did you think? Let's see how this goes. But football coaches do that. There's just so many relationships, and that's what makes the game really unique. Just relationships like that come through collaboration that crosses over the sports and business world, et cetera.
Q. I have a question for you both, Coach Swinney and Coach Heupel. What's the impact Mike Reed has had on your staff this year, being recently elevated to assistant head coach? And for you, Coach Heupel, for Tim Banks, you recently added him; what's his impact been for you this year as a defensive coordinator?
JOSH HEUPEL: Tim has been a phenomenal leader on the defensive side of the football. When we were going through the process of finding our defensive coordinator two years ago, looking for somebody that had experience that was a great leader, that was multiple in what he was able to do, was relationship driven and had a great ability to teach, for all the things that we encountered when we first arrived on campus, his steadiness, his leadership, his ability to gain buy-in from the guys around him, that's staff members that were coming in. Not everybody had worked together. There was some common threads where there were some previous relationships there. But then getting all of our players to buy in to what we're doing. He's done nothing but do a great job of continuing to grow what we're doing on that side of the football, and you can see that in the way our guys play for him.
DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, Mike Reed, he's just a great leader. He's been with me since the 2013 season, so he's just going near 10 or whatever, and has done a phenomenal job. He's coached a bunch of great players at Clemson. He's been a part of some of the best defenses in college football over the last decade. He's coached first-rounders and everything in between. He's a great recruiter, great communicator, really knows the game, but he's also our special teams coordinator, and he's a great friend. Love his family. He's got a great, beautiful family, his wife Kim and Michaela, Milan, his daughters. Just a guy that has really grown and would be a great head coach, as well, so it was easy. We had a lot of staff transition last year for the first time in a while, so it was easy to be able to promote him to assistant head coach and lean on him in a lot of areas.
Q. Josh, you've got three players opting out, all good players. You've got your coordinators gone and you've recently had a quarterback change. In a regular season you may have one of those changes in a given week. To have all of them at once, how is the challenge different for you as a coach, and how do you navigate all those changes within one game?
JOSH HEUPEL: Yeah, I think at the end of the day that's kind of the landscape of what happens at times inside your program when you're having success and during the course of bowl season. You can see that across the country. The unique thing is you have a couple extra weeks to prepare and plan for those situations. You're not dealing with it in a seven-day span. We lost some really good players. I think that provides unique opportunity. That's the tough thing and the great thing about college football is that essentially a quarter of your roster is graduating every single year. With that provides new opportunity to go make plays because you've got more snaps on the football field. It provides opportunities in leadership. It's the great thing about college football. You're essentially building your roster and your football team every single January, and that's always true, but I think in the landscape of college football, it's certainly true, and more evident and more prevalent now with the transfer portal, too.
Q. We saw Sheridan Jones not practicing yesterday. Just wondering if he was going to play in the Orange Bowl and if his career is done at Clemson.
DABO SWINNEY: I'm not sure. Sheridan could come back. He's been dealing with a hip flexor, so it's going to be close. He's one of those guys that's played a lot. He's got a lot of experience, but been battling a little bit. We'll see. But as far as is he done at Clemson, he's declared this as his senior year all year, but as you know, a lot of these guys have -- I guess we're going to deal with it for a couple more years, I guess, with the COVID year. I don't know if it's his last time. A lot of guys are going to decide that after the game.
Q. For both coaches, both of you were in a situation with one loss at the end of the year, you probably more likely would have been in the playoffs. In that situation, some teams find it hard to be motivated to be in this game because of the disappointment. How long did it take for you guys to get over that disappointment, and what were you able to do to keep them motivated and make sure that this game was important to them?
JOSH HEUPEL: Yeah, we had to reset the following week, and I think you guys played the week after, as well. The only reason we've gotten to this point, these players didn't come into this and just inherit it. They've worked for it from the moment that we got there on campus. That's the competitive nature. It's their connection to one another. Our players were able to reset. Was there disappointment? Absolutely, in that moment, and you could feel it in the building when they came in the following day, on Monday. But they were able to reset. This is an important game to our football team. We talk about finishing. We talk about legacy. This group that is graduating and heading on, this is a way to finish it and leave a strong legacy at Tennessee. At the same time, I think bowl games in this era are also about kicking off the following season. For all those things, our kids' focus and energy out at practice has been fantastic. I think it's important that you enjoy the bowl experience while you're here in South Florida, but when you're in meetings and on the practice field, you've got to be dialed in and locked in. I really like how our guys have handled the week up until this point.
DABO SWINNEY: Well, I mean, we've got to manage the disappointment. There's certainly disappointment anytime you lose a game. We all go into the season wanting to win every game. I think there's two teams that are undefeated right now. To have a great season, you have to manage success. You've got to manage failure along the way. Yeah, when you look back at the end, like man, there's only four teams right now that get to go to the playoff, as you alluded to there. So disappointing in the moment, but for us, yeah, you go back to work. Yeah, it hurts, but you come in on Sunday and you don't have time to linger. We've got a championship game the very next week to play a really good North Carolina team. So we reset, refocus, and thankfully we had another game to play. That certainly helps. Then as far as being motivated, both these teams have won 11 games. You don't go 11-2 if you're a team that doesn't have good leadership because it's hard to win. It's really hard to win. So to win 11 games in today's world in college football is special. It's a great season. Then to be able to come to the Orange Bowl and play the sixth-ranked team in the country, you turn on the tape, you get motivated real quick because these guys are competitors. Both teams, you've got guys that like to play. That's why they play football. They don't play football to whatever -- they like to play the game. It's a chance to go play the game, and not only that you get to do it at a venue like this, at Hard Rock Stadium, and you're playing one of the best teams in the country. Turn the tape on and watch these dudes run, you'll get motivated real quick.
Q. Coach Swinney, the NCAA rule change allows those enrollees to get out on the field with you. What have you seen out of those guys? I was having fun watching Nick Eason with his guys trying to coach them up. How has it helped them prepare for what the season will bring?
DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, it's been great. It would be even better if they would let them play. That would be great. It's been fun having those guys. I think it speeds up their acclimatization process, just getting the feel of guys. Most of the time when they get here in January they're into school and off-season program and drills and spring ball. To be able to have a visual even though it's not a normal game week, to just kind of be exposed to that a little bit, to be around some of the guys that aren't going to be here when they get going I think is a unique opportunity, as well. I think it's been great. I'm glad they did that. Then to be able to also put our eyes on them as far as having a first opportunity to really coach them in meetings, and then part of what we have always done in bowl prep is we get a lot of work on Clemson fundamentals, technique, kind of back to some basics. We get a lot of work on the opponent, and then we do a lot of JV work. We kind of create a JV season, create a couple scrimmages and have a lot of fun with the young guys, a lot of individual, a lot of that, so those guys, they couldn't scrimmage, because they couldn't get to that point, but to be able to get to work with them in individual drills and technique and coach them is very beneficial for them and us and I think just, again, it's been really fun. There were five of them that got the opportunity to come, and I think they've really enjoyed it. They're what we thought they were off the hoof.
Q. Josh, what have you seen from Joe Milton in embracing this opportunity, and how important is Friday's performance in terms of the quarterback competition to come?
JOSH HEUPEL: Yeah, Friday is important because this is the last game for this football team this season. It's the end of that culmination. We're going to have competition at every position next spring in our program. We've got to go out and earn it and take it every single day, and that's true at the quarterback position, as well. Everybody inside that room understands and knows. Joe has been great all season long. I think it's a unique story in today's atmosphere inside of college football that someone is that talented and has had some success at the quarterback position, ends up being moved to the No. 2 spot, sees that there's value in the staff cares about me, the staff can help develop me, I can perform inside of this offense, and my traits fit this, and I've got to stay the course because I need to grow. That can be mentally, it can be emotionally, it can be fundamentally. I think in today's world for a young man to see that and be able to say, hey, I'm going to sit here, I'm going to compete every single day with Hendon or whoever that young man might be and to handle it the right way is a great story. He's prepared like he's going to be the starter, all off-season, all training camp, all season long. He's continued to grow. We're playing a great opponent, great defense. It's going to take all 11 to go out there and perform at a high level tomorrow. But I'm excited to see Joe go compete, man, and excited for this opportunity for him.
Q. Josh, a couple things. How much of an adjustment is it for you to go back to calling plays?
JOSH HEUPEL: It's not. Like for us as a staff, we go through that process every single week. We go through it on game day. The fact that Joey and I have been together for 15 plus years, Glen and I have been together I think for seven years, the communication on game day is seamless, and I'm excited for this one.
Q. Have you started the process of interviewing for an offensive coordinator?
JOSH HEUPEL: Yeah, we'll do all of that, handle all of that on the back end of the bowl season. Just everything that's going on inside of college football after the regular season finishes, we'll handle all that at the tight end position here on the back end of this bowl game.
Q. For both coaches, with the opt-outs and the transfer portal affecting your roster, for a game as significant as the Orange Bowl is, do you see that as an issue, and is there a fix going forward for bowl games in the future? Would this seem to be a trend?
DABO SWINNEY: Well, I mean, I think there's a lot of fixes, but until they put us on the committee to fix it, it doesn't matter what we think. But I just think it is what it is. I certainly hope that the bowl games -- I know it's all about the playoff and the expansion. It's going to be even more so. And I certainly hope the bowl games stick around, and there's certainly some things that the bowl games can do to help, and hopefully that will take place. At the end of the day, things have evolved in college football, and bowl games are a great experience. I mean, it's an opportunity to go play. There's 365 days. If everything goes perfect in our world, you get 15 days to play the game that you love, right, so there's 350 days; what the heck are you doing? You're just working and training and grinding. So it's another day to go play. It's an opportunity to finish your season. It's an opportunity to get an unbelievable experience. Having played the game, those are some of my greatest memories and experiences. Just like this week, yesterday, those guys out there and having a big time on the beach yesterday afternoon, they'll never forget that. These are young people; we forget that. So they've had a lot of fun this week. You get to play some unique -- watching the game last night, what a great game. TV likes programming, right? People like to watch football. But I think as far as getting ready for the game, it's a chance to develop your team. It's a chance to finish this season. It's a chance to develop your team for next year, and it's a chance for those seniors -- not all these guys are going to go play pro ball. It's a chance for them to go play another game. A lot of them, they're going to be done, and then if guys don't want to play, then don't play and go do whatever you're going to do. I certainly hope that it's here to stay for a long time. But there's lots of things that can, I think, make it better as we move forward.
Q. Josh, just wanted to get your reaction when you turn on bowl games and you see these tributes to Mike Leach, you saw the one last night, the penalty, and a couple coaches have worn shirts. Just your reaction and what you think each time you see it, and also if you have anything planned tomorrow to kind of honor him.
JOSH HEUPEL: Yeah, Mike was instrumental in my opportunity to play at a high level, to coach at a high level. He's the guy that gave me my start. He meant so much to so many people around the country inside of college football and outside of it. I think he's really unique in that way that you truly got a chance to see how his mind worked and operated. He had so many passions outside of the game, as well. We lost somebody that made college football extremely interesting and changed the landscape of it. At that time, college football was played in a box around a lot of the country, and his vision of playing out in space is how college football is played today.
Q. Josh, is this a full-circle moment for you? I know you played in the 2001 Orange Bowl; what's that experience that you had back then compared to today as a coach?
JOSH HEUPEL: Yeah, my experience down here, great memories. Got a bunch of teammates that are actually going to be down here. A couple of them came into town last night, and will have an opportunity to hopefully catch up with them today, but see them on the field on game day, too. Great memories from my playing career. When I think back to my days at Oklahoma and some of the things that we accomplished, your mind obviously comes right here to this stadium and this bowl game. Dabo was talking about just the bowl game experience in general. These are opportunities and memories that you remember forever, and I've tried to share that with our football team, having played in this game, just what this game means, the exposure that you have, the opportunity that you have. As you get further away from it, your bowl experience is something that you're going to come back to when you're with your brothers.
Q. Dabo, you've got a couple players here that said they appreciate you not hitting the transfer portal, that that shows commitment and loyalty to those players. Is that why you don't hit the portal much?
DABO SWINNEY: We just haven't had to. I think it's been more -- certainly I've always said we're a developmental program. We always have been. If you're constantly bringing guys in over the top of guys, it changes your culture. It's just part of it, and it also -- you probably didn't evaluate well. But it's a different situation everywhere. It's very different if I was just coming to Clemson right now, I'd have -- half my roster would be transfer portal. If I was just taking over a team and you've got to win like yesterday, it's a different world than when I became the head coach. Very different in college football. If I was just named head coach at Clemson, probably half the guys would leave, right? And a lot of the fans would have gone in the portal, too, and left, if you could do that. That's just the reality. When Josh took over at Tennessee, I don't even -- thankfully they changed the rules for a new guy coming in. You probably lost almost 40 --
JOSH HEUPEL: Might have been a year late in changing the rules.
DABO SWINNEY: It was a year late but it's because of maybe what he did. You lose like 40 guys, how do you replace that. Then they say you can only bring in 25 initials. Then they changed the rules in college football to where guys can leave after spring practice. Well, who are you going to recruit in May? There is no high school kids to go recruit. My situation is just very different in that 14 years as the head coach we've been very much an evaluation, development program. We've had a lot of guys that have become great players as redshirt sophomores, juniors, seniors. Things have changed. We just haven't really had to. We haven't really lost starters. The guys that have mostly left our program have been, first of all, graduates, most of them that just wanted a chance to play, or you've had some guys that maybe just needed a fresh start that was maybe a backup or whatever. That's a good thing. That's not bad. It's created a different opportunity. Last spring, for example, what if we would have had five, six, seven, eight guys pack up and leave? Well, you have to go to the portal. We haven't had anybody leave. So you recruit your class, you have your roster, and you manage it from year to year. At this point we just haven't had to. I mean, we certainly could change a philosophy and do that. We've had the past two years, we really felt like we needed a veteran quarterback, so we got Hunter Johnson, and I'm glad we got Hunter Johnson right now. We went and just added Paul Tyson because we believe in the guy that we have. We just signed another great one in Vizzina. But we needed an older guy that's been around, and we've got a guy that's had four years of experience that really embraces the role. A lot of these guys, they're looking for certain things. That's why they're in the portal. It's got to be a good fit on both sides. We've signed a couple guys. Then we've had three or four guys that we have tried to recruit over the last year or so, and it just hasn't worked out. We weren't the right fit for them for whatever reason. Things change. Again, we haven't had to do that, but what if in the spring we have five guys, seven guys pack up and say, I'm out. So everybody has to deal with that. But again, where we are as a program, we just haven't been as impacted at this point.
Q. Dabo, you mentioned earlier this month the pressure that comes with being a starting quarterback. Cade, what have you seen from him the last few weeks that makes you confident to say he is the guy?
DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, well, he's been great. He's been a blessing that he's had a couple, two, three weeks here to just settle in and lead. But he's really not any different. He's just a kid that he's always on, he's always got a ton of energy. He loves to play. He loves to practice. He's just one of those guys that really loves the game. He's embraced it, and he's done a great job with it. He's excited about it. He's worked really hard to get to this point and knows he has a huge challenge ahead. Just a lot more comes with it that he's had to manage, but I think he's done a good job.
Q. Dabo, you have a player from Knoxville Catholic in Bryn Tucker. Can you talk about his development?
DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, he's one of those guys developmentally, redshirt sophomore, kind of in that process of growing and maturing into what we think he can be, big, strong kid, great family, has played a little bit on some special teams for us. He's starting on our field goal team there, and he's played a little bit at guard. He plays both guards. I'd like for him to learn to snap this spring. That's something that we'd like to see out of him, as well. But just a guy that's in that process of maturing and hopefully becoming a good player for us down the road.
Q. Josh, can you talk about the impact in recruiting a game like this, a stage like this can have for your program?
JOSH HEUPEL: Yeah, for sure. It's another opportunity for kids across the entire country to see the brand of football that you're playing, the culture that you have by the way that you compete together. Throughout the course of this season, we've been able to show the proof of what this program is becoming and what's going on inside of our building and continuing to take steps forward to continuing to compete for championships. When we first arrived, you were talking about it. A year ago they saw a little bit of proof of it. They get a chance to see a whole lot more of who we are and what we're about and the exciting brand of football that we're going to play. We're going to be extremely aggressive on offense, but we're going to have that same mentality and attitude on the defensive side of the ball and play that way on special teams, too. This is a great opportunity for Tennessee's brand, its logo, the university to be in the forefront of the country, playing in one of the iconic bowl games in college football.
Q. Coach Swinney, over the last decade, you've had Deshaun, Trevor, DJ all start as freshmen either early on in their career or in the middle of their career. How is Cade's readiness as he gets ready for his first start at the end of his freshman season, and can you kind of compare where he is versus where those guys were when their number was called?
DABO SWINNEY: Yeah, probably more ready than they were, honestly, because those guys -- he's had a little more time in the crock pot. Those guys had to be ready a little quicker, so I think Cade, he's had time to -- he's still a work in progress, but he's had time to physically, first of all, get himself in a much better situation than he was when he got here at about 179 pounds. He's almost right at 200 pounds now, so he's progressing physically, and so he's much better prepared there. He's had a great example in DJ, and he'd be the first one to tell you, DJ is one of the greatest preparers I've ever been around, so he had a good model to really see day in and day out, since January. Mentally he's been through as opposed to maybe two or three games, or to, bam, here's your moment. He's had a lot of game plans. He's had a lot of corrections. He's had a lot of weeks of practice and some experience to go with it, some good experience, some bad experience to prepare him. All those things I think have made him well prepared for this opportunity.
Q. We've talked about the portal. The portal has taken some blame for the spots taken up -- fewer spots for high school recruits where really it's just pieces moving. But is it not the extra COVID year, has that had more of an impact for you guys on recruiting and roster setting, especially when it comes to bringing in high school players and taking some of those spots because of that extra year the players are getting for the next full year?
DABO SWINNEY: Not really. There's a couple guys here, there. I think that's been fine. There's no question the portal affects the high school recruiting because now coaches have a whole 'nother pool of recruits. They have freshmen, they have sophomores in college. You have thousands of kids in this thing that used to not exist. Then you have the pressure to win right now. There's a lot that's going on, and it's really affected the high school recruiting, there's no doubt. A lot of these high school recruits are either not getting signed or being pushed down, or unfortunately sometimes when that portal opens up, some of these guys that have maybe been committed a long time lose their opportunity. That's why I think the portal is good; I just think there could be some tweaks to make it better for everyone. Everybody talks about the early signing period, all that. Man, if I'm a high school kid or a high school coach, I'd fight for it to stay where it is or be earlier, honestly. I wish they'd let them sign August 1 of their senior year and let them sign any time they want. That would cut out a lot of these offers that you can't commit, number one, and some of these kids would be protected because a lot of -- we just signed a class, all these guys would have signed in the summer if they were allowed to. Now all of a sudden it protects these high school kids a little bit, and again, it makes you be serious about who you offer and so forth as opposed to all of a sudden the portal opens up and some of these guys get pushed aside. I get it; I mean, I would do the same thing in this situation. But the high school kids are absolutely being impacted by the portal, much more than the COVID situation.
Q. Josh, how much has Coach Halzle's workload changed? How much has been added to his workload with Alex Golesh's departure and what does that entail?
DABO SWINNEY: As much as anything, on the scripting side of it, but how we've operated and functioned from how we design our starters for each drive, communication, obviously Alex's voice won't be there on game day, but the collaboration of all of us, the way we communicate in between plays, to have been in the middle of all of it, Joey has been, Glen has been, I certainly have been, too. We'll miss Alex. Alex will do a great job at USF. But the majority of our group and how we've operated just really hasn't changed that much.
Q. Just want to know that West Virginia Orange Bowl, blip in the radar, bad night, or do you see that as a turning point for your program to take a meteoric rise?
DABO SWINNEY: I mean, it was a pretty bad night, that's for sure. Thirty years since we'd been to the Orange Bowl. But again, that's football. I think we're about to go up four or five points on the one, Andre Ellington gets a touchdown, next thing you know ball goes 100 yards the other way, then we throw a pick six next series, then we fumble and they go score. It was downhill from there. But that's football. But it was a great experience for us. Thirty years since we'd been at the Orange Bowl. The one thing I told our team after the game was it was a bad moment, but we had a great year. We won the league that year for the first time in 20 years. I know people sometimes forget that. So that was a bad night, and that's what everybody wanted to focus on, but my job in that moment was to make sure that we didn't let a bad moment make us lose sight of a great year. Again, we won 10 games for the first time in 20 years, won the league, 20 years, got to the Orange Bowl, 30 years since we'd been in the Orange Bowl. That was my message to the team to say, hey, we're going to get better, we'll learn from this, we'll grow from this, we'll own it. It's going to be a long time until we play again. I wish we could have played the next week. But just a part of our journey. That's it. Just a part of our journey. Just every year is a new journey, it's a new opportunity, you learn and grow. We were coming off my second -- that was my third year we won the league. The year before that we won six games. It was just another step for us, and I told -- it wouldn't be 30 years before we got back to the Orange Bowl, and we were back two years later and beat a great Ohio State team right here. We got back in '15, and we're thankful to have another opportunity. Third time now in 10, 11 years. It was just a bad day in the midst of a great journey of Clemson football. That's how I look at it. Just all part of it.
