Swinney says Watson doesn't have to be 100% to play against Gamecocks

by Tony Crumpton - Assoc. Editor - Tue Nov 25 11:29:48 GMT-04:00 2014

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said at his weekly press conference that quarterback Deshaun Watson Deshaun Watson
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"He's not going to be at 100 percent," Swinney said. "He just needs to be able to do things to run our offense. He's not going to be at his 100 percent. To be honest with you, very few players out there are 100 percent when you're in your 12th game of the season - for either team. He's got to be able to execute at a high level for us, that's for sure."

Swinney said that Watson will be the starter as long as he can run the offense effectively.

"As long as he can do the things we need him to do in our offense, he's our starter," Swinney said. "He has proven that, but he has got to be able to do those things. We can't change our offense. He has got to be able to play, execute, he has got to be able to escape. He has to be able to run our system and those are things that he has to be able to demonstrate throughout the week in practice."

Swinney also said that Watson has a new knee brace and Tuesday's practice will be tell the coaches more about if Watson will be able to play against South Carolina.

"He did practice yesterday in a green jersey. Monday practice is a short practice. We're only out there for about an hour," Swinney said. "Today we'll find out a lot more. We'll put him in a normal jersey and he'll practice at a normal tempo with the rest of the guys. We will evaluate him and see where he is. It really is a day to day thing. Not trying to have some kind of conspiracy or anything like that. We just don't know until we can go through and watch him practice the way he's got to practice to be able to play. We may not really know until game time because he is getting a little bit better each day. He had a new brace on yesterday that he seemed pretty comfortable with, so we'll see how he does with some good competitive work - good on good where the speed of the game is going to be a little better today."