Swinney excited about rule change that allows him to work with freshmen

Swinney and the coaches will get to work with the freshmen.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sat May 28 09:00:07 GMT-04:00 2022

In past years, Clemson’s coaches would have to wait until August camp to get a long look at their freshmen summer enrollees, but a rule change has Tiger head coach Dabo Swinney excited about getting an early look next month.

This summer, coaches will be afforded limited time to interact with players per new NCAA rules. For up to two hours per day -- and up to eight hours per week -- coaches can work with their players, including incoming freshmen, in varying capacities. The January approval of the new rules served as a bonus for coaches who've fought for the extra access in recent years.

Swinney, speaking to TigerNet at Wednesday’s Prowl and Growl in Greenwood, said he can’t wait to see freshmen like Antonio Williams, TJ Dudley, Kylon Griffin, Myles Oliver, and Kobe McCloud.

“It's going to be a big summer for strength, conditioning wise, nutrition, recovery, you name it. All those guys. Most of our guys were in,” Swinney said. “We had a pretty good group come in for mid-year, but the rest of them will show up. The one change that they made, compliance-wise, is we can actually get on the field with those guys for like an hour at a time. Only with a ball, no good on good or anything. Nobody going against each other. All individual technique, fundamental stuff. But that's really pretty cool because we've never had the opportunity to do that. So to be able to go out and have a little time with some freshmen and kind of get them acclimated and coach them at a slower pace prior to camp is something that we will definitely take advantage of.”

Other freshmen on campus this summer are Caden Story, Wade Woodaz, Jahiem Lawson, Cole Turner, Josh Sapp, and Keith Adams, Jr.

“You want to get them all here and get your team complete,” Swinney said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get the rule passed where we can bring the whole roster in for camp. That just makes no sense to me. They’re here all summer and they train all summer, so we can only bring 110 and the rest have to kind of wait a couple of weeks until we get school started. It is what it is from that standpoint.”

Swinney said the coaches have to make sure they are using their time the right way.

“Now, you have to take that time out of your eight hours of training,” Swinney said. “So there's a balance there on when you do it. You have to be strategic. We've got some excellent linebackers coming. We're excited to get another running back in here. We've a good group of couple of defensive backs rolling in here. We got another couple of wide outs. We have Sapp coming in. We have a good group of guys.”