Swinney happy with the offense, Uiagalelei after Thursday scrimmage

Dacari Collins has had an impressive camp.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Fri Aug 20 15:10:48 GMT-04:00 2021

CLEMSON – The Clemson football team held its last full scrimmage of August camp Thursday afternoon, a day that saw the offense finally break through with some big plays.

The defense has dominated the offense up to this point in camp, but head coach Dabo Swinney said he saw a better offensive effort Thursday, including quarterback DJ Uiagalelei.

"There were some explosives, definitely. There were several in the scrimmage -- special teams, pass game, a couple of really nice runs,” Swinney said. “I thought D.J. Uiagalelei had his best day. He's kind of been steadily getting better as camp as gone on. I thought he had his best day today."

Swinney said he was glad to see some consistency out of Uiagalelei.

“I just thought this was his best day as far as putting it all together. Now some of that is because of other people. A little cleaner up front,” Swinney said. “Just command of everything that he's doing. Fundamentally, I thought it was his best day. Made the right decisions, made some critical plays at critical times. Should have had a couple more that we dropped that he put right on the money. Just very clean with his exchanges, footwork. Made all the calls right. Made some nice plays with his legs. I thought he had a game-like mentality today. I could really see him pushing himself to make every rep a game rep."

The offense, which has been plagued by penalties and bad snaps, played cleaner.

"Today was much better. I think we went from 10 penalties to two,” Swinney said. “We had no bad snaps. We had a couple with our third group, the PRIDE group. But we had none with the guys we know we have to count on to play in a couple of weeks; they were excellent today. That was good to see. I thought the guys that needed to improve did just that. We had a couple of drops today that were disappointing but all in all, it was much cleaner."

The Tigers will get most of the weekend off.

“The bulk of it from a live, physical standpoint is behind us,” Swinney said. “The best part of (Thursday) is we had a couple of guys get banged up but nothing major. It was a fun day. Mixed up the personnel a lot. Did overtime, you have new overtime rules (this year). Went all the way into a third overtime. Had two really good two-minute situations, good-on-good there, and was pleased how both sides performed in that area.

"Proud of the group. It's been 16 straight days we've been going. These next couple of days are about re-setting, re-charging, refueling a bit. Then we'll come back Sunday afternoon and pick back up. Excited to start honing in on our personnel and get ready to start doing some game-planning.”

Kicker BT Potter didn’t have a good day Thursday, but Swinney has still been impressed with the special teams.

"It's been really good. We've got a lot of veterans so that's been a real plus for us. Will Spiers has been consistent. B.T. Potter has been awesome,” Swinney said. “Actually Potter did not have a good day (Thursday), but out of 16 days, this was the only bad day B.T. had. Was just a little off for whatever reason. He's had an amazing camp. I really like where we are from a personnel standpoint with our field goal team. Punt has been great. I like what I'm seeing in the return game, had a big return today. Like how we're handling things from a punt return standpoint."

The center position has been one of the bigger questions mark in camp, and Swinney declined to say if Thursday’s scrimmage offered any clarity.

“We'll watch this tape tonight. We'll start honing into the personnel and how we want to rep. Anything could happen. Still have to practice well,” Swinney said. “Nobody is entitled to be the starter, still have to go earn it every day and continue to earn it. But you know, next week we'll start honing into our two-deep, and the threes that are kind of right there and get ready to go play.

"Again it's not as much about center for us as it is the best five. That's really the biggest thing. We'll go from there."

A couple of freshman receivers have also popped up on Swinney’s radar.

"I thought Dacari Collins hit that freshman wall, but it's good to see him bounce back the last couple of days. He's had a couple of good days. Had a big play in the scrimmage,” Swinney said. “Troy Stellato played a little bit. He's been slow in camp but went the past couple of days. He's going to be amazing. He's fast, but he got behind. He didn't come until the summer, but he got hurt and wasn't able to do a lot of the skills and drills in summer. And then he got hurt in camp. He's oozing with talent, but he's just a little bit behind. Everybody went except Joseph Ngata. He's still not quite there with his hamstring, but getting closer."