CLEMSON FOOTBALL

Quick Notes on Dabo Swinney Press Conference


by - Assoc. Editor -

Dabo Swinney Dabo Swinney
Head Coach
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took questions for the weekly press conference in preparation for the upcoming game against North Carolina.

Swinney said night games in Death Valley are treasured occurrences for the Clemson football team.

Swinney said UNC is a dangerous team. They are coming off a tough loss. We are coming off a tough loss.

Swinney said this is a really good football team we are about to play in UNC.

They are the fastest team we have played, no question (tempo-wise). They are a notch above us.

They are big upfront. They play two quarterbacks. They just play them. They have a ton of confidence is both of those guys.

They have three running backs. They are hard runners. #34 is the freshman. He looks like he is going to be a special player.

Defensively, they are big upfront. They have 2 or 3 guys that we recruited. #9 is a guy we recruited who is a good player.

They are 12th in the nation in turnovers on defense.

This the most dangerous special teams group we have seen so far. They have returned kick offs and last second punt returns. They have good people - #8 and #3.

Excited to be back in the Valley. Really proud of this team and how they've responded to a tough loss.

On Watson starting against UNC: "Did you watch the game on Saturday."

Ammon is so talented. I still have confidence in him. We have to work him through this difficult time.

Catanzaro was "so bad" that Clemson signed Lakip in the 2011 class.

Watson "was just amazing." He took care of the ball, checked down properly.

"Cole is a man's man. He is as class as them come. He doesn't like it. He is a great leader for us. We are going to need Cole Stoudt. This is going to be a long season. Cole will get an opportunity to play. Its a good situation. We have great two people that have great respect for the chain of command and who respect each other. We'll keep moving forward."

"We're not an under center offense. I'm not going to change the offense because of one play."

"We believe in what we do."

Swinney told friends this summer he's never had a freshman like Watson, including Sammy Watkins.

We've never had a freshman like Deshaun Watson. To see how he's absorbed this spring is amazing to me. Very little transition for him.

He (Watson) is a very mature 18-19 year old. Way wiser than his years. He is special. I have said that many times. You have no idea how it will transfer in game situations.

"We're 0-2 vs Clemson. We have to control the things that we can control."

I really is about Clemson. If we can control in some of those areas, we gonna be a heckuva team.

"I was not happy after the Georgia game. I was mad. I knew we were good enough, but I wasn't sure we cared enough. We're good enough and we care enough. If we harness that we can be one of the better teams in the country before it's done."

"How we played was incredible and the film validates that. We played incredible. We played better than we played in the Orange Bowl."

Proud of his players for their effort.

In 2010, we had a similar loss to Florida State.

If we do not show up on Saturday, we will get beat.

This is their (UNC) first ACC game, goals are still in front of them. Last week's score isn't indicative of the team they have."

I was very pleased how our offensive line played against Florida State.

Cole deserves to play. Period. Cole is not going to hurt the Clemson Tigers.

"Deshaun was in that zone."

"He (Watson) is just a very mature young man."

Swinney on special teams: Doesn't matter who's back if we can't get punts to return. There haven't been many opportunities to this point.

Swinney on Norton's death threats: I think he deleted his account (facebook). Its a shame that young people have to deal with that.

Swinney on fans that issue death threats: "Those aren't fans. Those are fanatics. Those are people with issues."

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