Swinney on Clemson's Spring Game: 'We're a work in progress, but we improved'
On the spring game:
"Fun day. I really thought it'd be competitive and it was. A few missed opportunities offensively. Some big competitive plays defensively, with a great finish by Bubba McAtee at the end there. Just a fun game. Had some good situational stuff come up as well. It's been a competitive spring. We've been a very incomplete team this spring, obviously with a lot of these guys that have been out, but the guys that were able to go through spring-- I'm really pleased and proud of the work.”
On the team:
“We're a work in progress, but we improved. That was the main thing especially offensively to get a foundation in, to improve and get better, and we were able to do that. We had a lot of young guys-- a lot of young guys and some guys that maybe are gonna have bigger roles this year get some really meaningful work this spring as well.”
On the crowd:
“Unbelievable crowd it was just so cool to have 50,000 or whatever it was here to see us. I really appreciate our fans. I know it's not like that everywhere. I appreciate our fans coming out-- it's big to give us that type of feeling for these guys to have to go out there to play and compete in.”
On the future:
“Looking forward now, we've got a lot of meetings with our players coming up these next couple of weeks and kind of equipping them with what they need to know as we call "transform" this summer as we enter in the second phase of this 2023 journey. A lot of work to do this summer. I think again, next time we're back on the field come August-- we'll be a lot more complete football team-- and a lot of guys that I think will be hopefully the best version of themselves that we've seen since they've been here."
On Will Shipley sitting out:
“He's just had some knee tenderness. He's practiced. He's scrimmaged some too and then just the last week or so he's battled a bunch of tendinitis in that knee area. He's done all the team stuff except for the last week or so. We didn't scrimmage him last week or today. Just kept him out of a lot of stuff as a precaution."
