Swinney Monday Teleconference: Wesco out for the year, Klubnik and Sadler on the mend

CLEMSON — Late Monday afternoon Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney addressed members of the media in a 5:30 p.m. teleconference.

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Swinney spoke on a range of topics, including of course injuries and lengthy preparation during an open date week ahead of the Tigers’ (3-4, 2-3) November 1 home matchup with Duke (4-3, 3-1). The Blue Devils also are enjoying an open date this week.

As is customary during an open date week, Swinney will not hold a Tuesday news conference and will not be available Wednesday evening.

ALSO SEE: Clemson leads for 4-star Sunshine State playmaker | What’s Dabo Swinney going to do now? | MONDAY INSIDER | SUNDAY UPDATE: What we are hearing on Bryant Wesco and Cade Klubnik | CLEMSON FOOTBALL: Houston, we have a problem | Clemson’s verbal commitments | Clemson’s junior commitments

The following is an abbreviated transcript from Monday’s teleconference.

Opening Statements

“We got through the tape and all that. Certainly a disappointing outcome for us. We didn’t earn the right to win and SMU did. We did not play complementary football. We could never put it together. They out-executed us and out-coached us on some critical plays.

“Special teams was a real positive. Defensively, we got stops in the first half, but very disappointed with the big plays and some busts. We have a lot of guys who are playing well, a lot of positives and a lot of guys who have improved. We didn’t stop the run. They were efficient there and you know, just too many yards per completion. Big plays, busted cover 3 on a 70-yard touchdown and gave up the option with no leverage, critical penalties and too many positive first down plays for them. Biggest thing we had three opportunities to, again, get it going and we had some momentum and they went and scored on four plays. Down five with 6:44 and we couldn’t stop them. Just really frustrating. The flip side is when we stopped them in the first half, we didn’t answer with scores. We did compete our butts off, though.

“Offensively, Christopher Vizzina was a bright spot. He has not played any snaps with the game on the line at all. I was proud of him. Definitely some things he will learn from. He got better and better and made some big plays. He was 29 of 42 and four of those were drops. We had some guys who played well. Tristan made some plays and T.J. had another good game. They beat us up front. We didn’t do well. We don’t have to rush for 200 yards but we need to be efficient in what we’re doing. Just overall, we didn’t earn the right to win by not doing what we needed to do. We were in position to win, we competed our butts off, but didn’t get it done.

“We have a lot of guys banged up. This is a good time to get some guys healthy. Let’s see if we can get this team back on track. We have five more games to go play. We’ll rally and see if we can win. We’ll flush this one and go move forward. We have to work our butts off to find a way to have a great November. That’s where our focus is. Let’s try to have a great game against Duke and see if we can get back some momentum.

“Injury-wise, prayers answered on Bryant Wesco. Just a blessing. Best-case scenario. It was a very scary injury. The doctors did an amazing job. Very scary injury and a lot of unknowns for the first 24 hours. He’s back home now. Best-case scenario.

“Now, he’s done for the year, for sure. But the doctors are confident he’ll make a full recovery. Definitely something that will keep him out for the rest of this season. All indications are he’ll be OK. Just a real blessing. He got home today and was just kind of resting. He’ll be back over here tomorrow.

“Sadler, we thought that was more serious. I anticipate he’ll continue to improve each day. Same thing with Cade. He’s better today as well. This is a good time for us from an injury standpoint.”

Question: For the rest of the season, do you expect to make any staff changes?

SWINNEY: “No man. We’re just trying to get ready and see if we can do a better job as players and coaches. We’ll rally and see if we can’t put a good plan together.”

Question: Your thoughts on TJ Moore’s progress?

SWINNEY: “He’s had a good year. What a great game he had against SMU. Tristan Smith really stepped up. He’s had two or three good games. Every time Antonio touches it, something good happens. We have a good group.”

Question: You might not want to answer this, but have you considered staff changes in the middle of the season?

SWINNEY: “I’m just focused on having a good Monday practice. That’s all I’m focused on.”

Question: Any changes you would have made with offensive play-calling?

SWINNEY: “Yeah, there are always changes after a ballgame you’d like to have back. There are good calls that we have to execute better. We all weren’t good enough to win. We’ll see if we can’t go win this next one.”

Question: Why did you struggle so much in short yardage?

SWINNEY: “We had another one where we dropped the ball, we had a fourth down where we had to stay with No. 74 and we would have had it. We just bounced it. Just execution, just poor execution. That’s on all of us, coaches and players.”

Question: Eric Mac Lain said this was probably one of the worst games he’s ever seen out of a Clemson offensive line. Can you explain why the struggles have continued there?

SWINNEY: “They’re coming off two good games. They did not play well. Blake Miller had one bad play but played a great game. Brayden, for a first start, did well. But we didn’t play well inside at all. We don’t have any excuses. We have good players. SMU just won that matchup. We have to give them credit. We have to do a better job. We had some guys out but we have enough to go get the job done. We still had a chance to win the game at the end with a stop, but didn’t get one. Definitely not our best game up front, that’s for sure.”

Question: How has the offensive line performed this year relative to your expectations in August?

SWINNEY: “They’ve been solid. They held up pretty good in the first game. We had some unfortunate turnovers. They played well against Georgia Tech. Nothing has been good enough anywhere. They can only control so much. They get blamed for a lot. There are a lot of moving parts. Nothing has been good enough. That’s where we are right now. Good news is we have five more games.”

Question: Do you have an update on Elyjah Thurmon?

SWINNEY: “No. He’ll get evaluated next week. Tristan Leigh is making pretty good progress. Elyjah, we’ll know a little bit more on him next week.”

Question: With Wesco out for the year, how does that affect playing time for Tristan Smith?

SWINNEY: “Definitely ups his opportunity for sure. We have those five guys who will bounce around and you’ll see different combinations.”

Question: Was it a neck or spinal injury for Wesco?

SWINNEY: “Just call it a back injury. I won’t get into the details of it. He didn’t have a fracture. It’s not a Justyn Ross or Mike Williams situation, but it was a very serious injury. He’s very fortunate. Very scary. The doctors did a great job. We expect him to make a full recovery. We’ll always take a huge amount of precaution with injuries of that nature.”

Question: On the defensive line, maybe this was the first time that Peter Woods and T.J. Parker didn’t affect the quarterback since they got here. What would you attribute that to?

SWINNEY: “They did a good job of keeping the ball outside. I thought TJ played pretty good. That’s about three straight games where he has played well. They doubled him a lot. Both of those guys played pretty good for us but we didn’t affect him enough. They got outside. And their quarterback is a really good player. They don’t give up many sacks. We could have got him one more time but give him some credit. They did a good job of working on the perimeter. I thought TJ actually played pretty good.”

Question: How would you describe the mindset of your team right now? Are you guys still bought in?

SWINNEY: “Good. Back at it. These kids care. They love Clemson. They played their butts off. Had a good team meeting and about to go practice. It’s been a tough season so far but these guys have kept getting up and going back to work and that’s what they will continue to do. I don’t have any doubt that they’ll rally and have the best possible finish they’ll have.”

Question: Is speed a bit of an issue at safety or is it bad angles?

SWINNEY: “We just busted. Didn’t have anything to do with speed (on the 70-yard touchdown). The safety jumped the over-route. Ronan can fly. Khalil can really run. We just have to be better with our execution. We fit a gap wrong one time. The option … our backer can’t get blocked by the tackle. He’s got to get outside and leverage the ball.”

Question: You said the run game wasn’t enough to help Vizzina out. What happened there?

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SWINNEY: “I don’t think we did a good job of calling it (Riley). We just didn’t do a good enough job of packaging some things together for him. We didn’t execute some things well. The short yardage would have kept us going and we didn’t execute it. Schematically, we had some things that we just never got to. Just a frustrating day from that standpoint.”

Question: Did you go in planning to use Denson more than one play?

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SWINNEY: “We just had a little package for him. We thought he might play more plays but Garrett just never got back to it.”

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