Dabo talks about the Blue Hose

by TigerNet Staff - Tue Sep 07 13:57:17 GMT-04:00 2010

CLEMSON – Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney met with the media Tuesday morning, and discussed this past week’s 35-10 win over North Texas, this week’s contest against Presbyterian and his thoughts on the state of his team after one week.

Following are highlights:

On preparing for the Blue Hose:

“Getting ready for the Blue Hose- it's week two. The focus is on us. It's about improvement and focusing on mistakes and keeping on keeping on. We did some good things last week that I'm proud of but obviously we've got some areas that I hope we improve on from week one to week two. PC is transitioning to Division I and that's always a difficult process. We've only watched one game and they seem to be improved - they put up 362 yards of offense up there and scored some points. The little running back they've got is a good tough runner that has some balance to him. The center is not very big but he gets the job done. He's good.

Defensively we are very familiar with these guys because their defensive coordinator used to be our graduate assistant over here for a number of years. Tom does a great job coordinating the defense. Andy Ford is their secondary coach. They have a good sound scheme. The biggest thing in preparing for them is they aren't very big and they are very young. So they aren't going to just sit there. So we have to be prepared for a lot of different movements - whether it's guys coming from the secondary or specialty blitzes. There will be a lot of movement. That will be something to watch this weekend.

Injury-wise for us we are in pretty good shape. Brandon Maye is progressing very very well. He is questionable. Miguel [Chavis] is probable. He'll practice today. I'd say he's probable. We did have one other issue pop up yesterday and that was Jarvis Jenkins. He played the whole game but his knee kind of swelled up on him a little bit. He's got a slight MCL sprain. He probably could play this week but he's probably questionable.

On the not seeing much of the vertical passing game:

“Well we need to get the ball a little more. That would help. I thought we threw the ball. We didn't really do a whole on offense to be honest with you but we did what we had to do to win the game and that's the objective.”

On Jamie Harper:

”We all want to them to be super stars as freshmen. He's just growing up. He didn't just take a superstar pill and become a good player. He's been working. He's just one of those guys - him and Andre are both third-year players. They've had to pay their dues and grow up. Little things. Like Jamie, learning how to take care of his body the right way. They are more confident and more sure of what they are doing. More knowledgeable and more productive. That's the case at a lot of positions.”

On seeing enough of his team to prepare for Auburn:

” I just want to win. That's really all that matters. I'm not worried about anything else. I'm worried about getting to 2-0. That hasn't happened very often around here. We definitely want our players to keep getting better. There's nothing like game film of themselves to study and learn from. That's all we are focused on.”

On the defense:

“No it was the first game and we just didn't play well in some spots. They did a good job. Let's give them some credit. We did have six sacks. We did have 13 tackles for loss. I know nobody wants to talk about something positive. That's top five in the country. Guys were active, flying. Again, let's not confuse activity with accomplishment. Everybody is running the race. Are you just running the race or are you running to win. We did some things in the game that I know they know better. Also, it was the first game and sometimes crazy things happen. We did not finish some plays like we could have. I'm just glad we won. You know, I've been in games where we've played pretty good and lost. And that ain't worth a darn right there. Yeah- we didn't play as good as we hoped but we won the game. There are some good things to build upon and that's what we are focused on.”