Swinney comments on Jeff Scott, injuries, QB situation and what's wrong with offense

Swinney said no one is happy with any facet of the offense right now.

David Hood - Senior Writer - Sunday, November 06 2022

Head coach Dabo Swinney knows about Jeff Scott but is only interested in beating Louisville (3:30 p.m. Saturday). He also knows his quarterbacks have to play better.

Swinney met with the media for a few minutes Sunday evening to discuss the Tigers’ 35-14 defeat at the hands of Notre Dame, injuries, the play of his team, and the news that former assistant Jeff Scott was let go as the head coach at South Florida.

"First of all, injuries in the game; I know you guys saw we had one in Beaux Collins. He will definitely be out this week,” Swinney said. “We will get a better evaluation on him in the first part of the week. We still don't have total clarification on Xavier Thomas (foot) yet. They're (team doctors) still consulting on the long-term plan for him and what they're going to do in the short term.

"Like I said last night, I'm really disappointed with the way we played. We needed to win the turnover margin and stop the run. It's just that simple. They only had nine completions but they were the more physical team. The critical play was the blocked punt. We lost momentum. It was a really bad night.”

Swinney noted, however, that the Tigers are one of the few teams nationally with an 8-1 record.

"The good news is we are a better team than I saw last night. A tough day when you know you're better than you perform. We're 8-1, not 5-3. We own it, we learn from it, and we just get back to work,” he said. “That's what we have to do. We can't do anything about what happened yesterday. We'll get the team back in here tomorrow and see if we can grow from this. It's a chance to reset. A lot of ball left and a lot of opportunity left. The only thing off the table for us is that we know we're not going to be undefeated.

"We have a great opportunity this week to go win the division title outright. We want to have the best finish we can possibly have. I'm excited about a new opportunity this week. We failed in our objective yesterday but we want to recommit to the standard that we talk about."

I asked Swinney if he still had confidence in both quarterbacks and how he would handle both DJ Uiagalelei and Cade Klubnik going forward.

"I have confidence in both of them. DJ certainly has to get back on track. Obviously, Cade made a mistake, and we probably put him in a bad spot. Just a poor decision there. We want to continue to bring him along. DJ is still a guy we believe in. He's 14-1 in the last 15 games as our starter. It was kind of a weird game with how things played out. He did some positives, but too many missed plays. Too many things he has to clean up. We also have to get Cade opportunities and keep evaluating that."

Swinney said three of the four sacks occurred because Uiagalelei held the ball too long.

"I thought he could have gotten rid of the ball on all of them. Four sacks, and three of them he held too long. He was waiting on Antonio (Williams) and Antonio got caught in the traffic, so he has to come off that quicker,” Swinney said. “They got us on one from the backside and he didn't have a chance on that. I promise you; he's already been here today dissecting things. No one cares more than him. Hopefully, we'll get back on track this week."

Swinney was then asked if he had heard about Scott's firing.

"Literally like 30 seconds before I got on here, (Clemson football communications AD) Ross Taylor told me that. I didn't know anything about it,” Swinney said. “I will reach out to Jeff. I know he gave it everything he could down there, and apparently, it didn't work out. He's a great coach, a great person, and someone I love dearly. I know he'll grow from it."

I asked Swinney if Scott would be welcome back if there were any staff openings down the road.

“I'm not getting into any of that stuff. I just want to beat Louisville versus thinking about all that hypothetical stuff,” he said.

I then asked if the offensive problems were scheme or execution.

"It's a combination of a lot of things. We're 8-1. We're better but we're not anywhere near where we want to be. We're not where we're going to be,” Swinney said. “We evaluate everything every week all the time. I love our players. We have done a lot of good things. We're not 4-4, we're not 5-3 like we were this time last year. We're 8-1. We're going to try to get to 9-1 this week. No one is satisfied with any facet of our game right now. We're always trying to get better and improve."