News and notes from Wednesday's practice

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Wed Dec 19 18:17:28 GMT-04:00 2012

CLEMSON – Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney Dabo Swinney
Head Coach
View Full Profile announced Wednesday that defensive back Bashaud Breeland Bashaud Breeland
RS So. Cornerback
#17 6-0, 195
Allendale, SC
View Full Profile will miss the Chick-fil-A Bowl and have surgery Thursday to repair a groin injury that has plagued Breeland for several weeks.

“Injury wise, Breeland is out. They are going to do surgery on him tomorrow and hopefully get him cleaned out,” Swinney said following practice. “We need to get him well. We tried to nurse him back, but it wasn’t coming like we wanted to. It was similar to what [Martin] Jenkins had. Jenkins had that in high school and battled through it but never could get over it so we decided to get that fixed. And he looks great. And Darius [Robinson] is close. We might be able to get him back out there in a couple of weeks. It has been a thin year in the secondary. But we have been able to get a lot of experience for Garry [Peters[ and Cortez [Davis]. David BeasleyDavid Beasley
RS So. Offensive Guard
#68 6-4, 315
Columbus, GA
View Full Profile rolled his ankle in practice, but he should be okay.”

Swinney said he should also know about any academic casualties by Friday.

“I probably won’t know that until Friday. You never really know,” he said. “There may be a guy or two. You never really know. There’s a couple of guys on the borderline. I don’t anticipate any of our starters not being available. But we won’t know until we get the results back.”

Swinney that with the Tigers relatively healthy, they’ve been “working on Clemson” and fundamentals in the early bowl practices.

“Just steady progress and we’ve spent a lot of time working on Clemson the first part of practice,”

he said. “We really started to transition today and over the next couple of days it will be all Clemson versus LSU and really try to get dialed in and honed in on what we’re going to do to really button up the game plan as if we were going to play on Saturday. You don’t want really spend a lot of time game-planning when you get to the bowl site. You want to be locked in on what you’re going to do and spend that week getting the precision down, sharpening up your execution and just studying the plan. Guys have responded well and practiced hard. We put them in some adverse situations and they have responded pretty well.”

He said they have tried to make the practices as physical as possible.

“Like I said, we tried to create what they’re going to see in this game,” he said. “Just like when you play a triple-option team, you have to present what you’re going to see week-to-week the best you can. This team we’re playing, their style of play is by far the most physical of any team that we’ve seen in quite a while so we’ve try to do the best we can to prepare our guys for it.”

Swinney was asked if any of the redshirt players were standing out.

“None of them that I’m going to comment on. They’ve all been doing good,” he said. “We scrimmaged today with them. We are just letting them play and letting them compete. Hearing our voices in a different way, the teaching, getting back to thinking about Clemson instead of whoever the team of the week is has been good for them. And, getting all of the other guys gone- not having your teammate out there watching. It’s just the JV guys going at it. It’s been good. We’ve got some good young talent on this team. A bunch of these guys will help us next year. Several of these guys are going to go on to have great careers, I don’t have any doubt about it.”

Swinney on LSU

“They’ve got a system that’s been in place for eight years that, obviously, they recruit to. They’re a team that’s located in a state where they really just kind of select who they want. That allows them to have great depth. They’ll play four or five running backs and they’re all 220, 230 pounds, and they’re all fast. They were all great players in high school. They’re huge up front. Their quarterback doesn’t get the credit that he deserves for throwing the football. He can throw the football. It’s just more of a style of play that they’re committed to, but he can throw the ball. The latter part of the season, they’ve thrown a little bit more.

“They threw for 300 yards on Alabama. They’re certainly very capable in all aspects, very talented outside. It’s a combination of great defense, really believing in their system, recruiting to their system, developing their players, depth and good coaching. It’s a combination of all of that. They’re as good a team as there is in the country, at what they do. We’re going to have to play well. It’s a great opportunity for us. It’s a great measuring opportunity for where we want to be. That’s where we want our program. We want to get to where you’ve got eight years of sustained success, and competing for your conference championship, competing for the national championship, recruiting at a high level, developing the players.”