Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney held his weekly press conference, Tuesday, fielding questions about how his team has responded mentally to the lopsided defeat to Georgia, the progress of the Tigers’ highly-touted freshmen receivers and his assessment of quarterback Cade Klubnik.
The Tigers are looking to rebound from a season-opening loss to the nation’s top-ranked team, but Saturday’s opponent, Appalachian State, is no cupcake. The Mountaineers knocked off no. 6 Texas A&M in 2022 and took 17th-ranked UNC to double overtime last season. Swinney knows App. State’s reputation as a giant-killer, saying that upsets are “woven ino their DNA” and that “they have our full attention.”
When reflecting on the loss to Georgia and where the Tigers can improve, Swinney kept coming back to the need to “stop shooting themselves in the foot” and focus to detail. He thinks that will come with time and pointed out that some things can’t be taught, they must be experienced.
When questioned about the play of Klubnik (18 of 29, 142 yards, int.), Swinney refused to feed the narrative that the second-year starter is not living up to the hype, “Everybody thought he was bad? Is that the consensus? I didn’t think he was bad. The people in this building didn’t think he was bad. He made some big-time plays.”
Swinney also raved about the leadership on this year’s version of the Tigers, pointing out that they’ve responded to the season-opening loss just the way he anticipated. Defensive lineman Peter Woods was singled out for praise. “At times, he was the best player on the field,” Swinney said. “He’s a man. A real problem.”
One element that must be factored into Saturday’s matchup is Clemson’s home-field advantage. Swinney thinks the Valley will give Clemson a significant boost, “Our crowd’s awesome. The energy, the environment is unique in college football … it’s juice, it’s momentum.”
Swinney is optimistic about how Clemson will perform against the rest of the schedule, “If you play the right way, good things will happen. This is a team that has a chance to come together and have a heck of a year.”
Clemson and Appalachian State will kick from Death Valley at 8 p.m., Saturday.
Key comments
- On App. State QB Joey Aguilar: True zone-read team w/a QB that forces true option principles. It really stresses you and makes you be disciplined. QB is special. A lot of respect for him and his 3 WRs
- Biggest things for us is to clean up some of the details, take care of the ball and keep playing with effort … We are in a good spot as a team health-wise
- Takeaways from Georgia loss: Some things you can’t teach, you have to experience. The little things like leveraging ball on the outside shoulder properly or how critical a missed tackle can be. When playing UGA, those things get magnified. The little things
- Defense can’t worry about offense struggling. You should be excited to go play. Same w/the other side. If your D gives up big play, the offense should take the field and want to get it back. We were down 10 in NC game and came back. Just have to keep playing
- On not getting everyone involved offensively: We didn’t get WR Tyler Brown the ball until the 4th quarter. That’s an “F” on us
- They’ve got the right people in the room. It’s not always what you see (on scoreboard)