CLEMSON: Dabo Swinney’s penultimate regular season press conference touched lightly on this week’s Senior and Military Appreciation Day opponent, Furman, and heavily on what’s ahead for the program related to offseason player procurement.
The Tigers will be seeking their sixth win of the season, which would make them bowl eligible for a 27th consecutive season. After turning down a bowl in 2004 following the fight in the South Carolina game, the Tigers have appeared in 20 straight bowl games, the fourth longest active streak in the country.
Clemson and Furman have a long history in football. The Purple Hurricanes, as they were known at the time, were the Tigers’ first opponent on October 31, 1896. Clemson won that day 14-6 and is 45-10-6 all-time against the Paladins. The Tigers have won the last 32 meetings in the series. That’s their longest winning streak all-time against any opponent.
Furman is coming off of a win over VMI. The Paladins are 6-5 and will be closing out their season on Saturday.
Some key comments from Swinney
- All the respect in the world for Furman coach Clay Hendrix, typical Hendrix coached team, runs down hill, can strike vertically with the passing game, just wants his team to play well and punch their ticket to the postseason.
- If they don’t get who they want in high school recruiting, or lose a commitment to a late flip, the Portal is where they can go.
- Knows people are breaking the rules regarding contact with players before they enter the Portal, but not them, they will do it the right way, and there are several reasons they might go into the Portal, like losing a commitment late or coming up short in recruiting.
- The fact that players are being paid does not change that they are college students who have to do academic things to be able to play, so they are not true professional football players, which he has said he would not want to coach in college.
- With the injuries on the OL, fortunate they still have a group they can run out there who have played a lot of snaps.
- Brayden Jacobs hurt himself after they won the Louisville game by jumping up and down in celebration and came down wrong on his foot.
- Would like to see the Portal date pushed back into February or later, believes that would lead to more players staying after a cooling off period after a season, and a chance to further improve within the program and earn more playing time.
- They haven’t run the ball as well they need to, and they haven’t been as good on third down as they need to be, two areas to be addressed in the off season.