Dabo Swinney reacts: Clemson’s HC talks starting Uiagalelei and more after win over FSU
Clemson scratched out a 30-20 win over Florida State on Saturday at Memorial Stadium. The win improved the Tigers’ home winning streak to 32 games and moved the team (5-3, 4-2 ACC) one win closer to bowl eligibility. Here’s what head coach Dabo Swinney had to say after the game:
On what D.J. Uiagalelei did to earn the starting quarterback spot: “I thought first of all, how he finished the game last week, how he responded. He went in, he took us right down the field and scored a touchdown and we never got the ball back. Just how he practiced all week. Both of (the quarterbacks) practiced well. I just thought that he got in a good rhythm out there and was making throws. We moved the ball the whole game. Three out of the first four, five drives, were scoring drives. We just missed a field goal, so we kept moving the ball, doing a lot of good things. I thought he responded to the ball well, made good checks in the run game. I thought he had a couple mistakes. The big miss was the touchdown to (wide receiver Justyn) Ross. Double-move, sprint out and just didn’t get downhill on it to throw it over the top. Sailed it out of bounds. To me, that was his worst play of the game.”
On Uiagalelei’s interception: “Even when bad things happen, the shovel pick last week, he’s had two pick-6s and neither one of them are on him. Everybody puts them on him, but we let a guy run through the A gap last week, thinks he’s going to be blocked and he probably should’ve checked before he shoveled it, but kind of shoveled it blindly. That guy’s supposed to be blocked. He’s not supposed to be there. And then, he gave (Joseph) Ngata on that one (against Florida State), and Ngata, that’s 100% on Ngata. That’s our rule: if you get the ball thrown to you and it gets intercepted, then that’s on you. You cannot let the ball get intercepted when it’s a ball that there’s a chance to be a play on, not like just a terrible throw, but a ball where there’s going to be a competitive play. It can’t be intercepted. There’s either two things that’s going to happen: you’re either going to catch it or it’s a (pass interference) on them, but we’re not going to let the ball get picked. So, he gave him an opportunity right there. He’ll learn from that.”
On the overall win: “Thirteen years at Alabama and 19 year at Clemson, I’d probably put that in the top five all-time wins I’ve been apart of. It was special. It’s just unbelievable. I can’t even put into words all that we’ve dealt with this year. … You saw the foundation of our program tonight. That’s what you saw. When you have a great foundation, you can build something great but you can also withstand adversity when it comes.”
On kicker BT Potter’s misses: “Obviously, BT had his worst night in a long time, but I’ll tell y’all exactly what I told him after the game. I told him shake it off man. He’s been there for us all year. We don’t have five wins if it’s not for BT. He’s been money for us all year long. He had a rough night, but he’s had this team’s back all year. Tonight, the offense and defense needed to have his back and they did.”
On having former head coach Tommy Bowden in town: “It was great to have Tommy here for a couple days. I really enjoyed visiting with him and having some time to really just reflect, talk about a lot of different things. He was blown away by where we are, so it was a great, great weekend from that standpoint.”
Swinney on starting DL Justin Mascoll and KJ Hendry over Xavier Thomas and Myles Murphy: “Mascoll and KJ are pretty good, I just thought they played a little better. It’s a week-to-week deal. It has been all year. X and Myles, they responded tonight. I think KJ and Mascoll did some good stuff, too.”
