Dabo Swinney's take on LSU's new roster ahead of top-10 matchup

LSU and Clemson enter this year expecting to win big, but it all starts on Saturday night in a massive top-10 showdown featuring two elite head coaches in Brian Kelly and Dabo Swinney. The two teams and head coaches have been preparing for this the past month and now look to get their 2-25 campaign started on the right foot.

Swinney started his Tuesday press conference talking about LSU, the roster, the new faces, Brian Kelly, and more. Here’s everything he said about the Tigers.

“We’ve got a great matchup obviously with LSU coming in here,” Swinnsy said. “And Coach Kelly has got a long track record of winning for a long time. You don’t get lucky and have jobs like LSU. He’s a great coach and has his team really well positioned to have a great year. This is a very talented football team on both sides of the ball. Similar to us in a lot of ways, and that they’ve got elite quarterback play, elite skill, and they got dudes in the trenches on both sides. That’s why it’s a top 10 matchup and I don’t have any doubt it’s going to be one heck of a game.”

Swinney continued, talking about LSU’s offense, particularly highlighting quarterback Garrett Nussmeier among others.

“Quarterback’s a really good player,” Swinney said. “He’s a leader. He’s tough. Got a lot of respect for him. He’s a guy that’s has stayed and he’s developed and now he’s on his way to being a high draft pick. He’s got he’s got a lot of poise. He’s got great instincts, really good pocket awareness. He’s got big-time arm talent. He’s tough. And they’ve put a good group together up front. They had some guys that graduate, so they went and brought in some really good players, some experienced guys. They got guys that can take the top off. They got guys that can complement their run game with the screen game and getting the ball in space and breaking tackles. They got zero [Zavion Thomas] and some really compact, physical runners. Three [Chris Hilton] is a rocket ship. Four [Nic Anderson], he’s a big bodied receiver. He’ll be the biggest guy out there. So, 29 [Caden Durham] is as good as we’ll probably see. I mean, he’s a very good back. He is strong. He’s powerful. He breaks tackles. He has the speed to take it the distance. They do a good job of involving him in the run game. They really don’t have any weaknesses on the offensive side of the ball. They equip the quarterback to make them right and most of the time he does.”

While the offense has the potential for fireworks, Swinney has also been impressed by the new talent on the defensive side of the ball as LSU looks to get back to fielding high-level defenses under Brian Kelly.

“Then over on the defensive side I mean elite linebacker play,” Swinney said. “They’ve got a lot of experience there. I think probably as good a corners as we’ll see all year. Number one [Ashton Stamps] is back. He’s a great player. Then they went and got the kid from Virginia Tech [Mansoor Delane] who we who we’ve seen and know a lot about him. Safeties are really good players and then they’re stout up front. The guys that are back from last year, good players and they went and added a few guys. So, got the kid from Florida State [Patrick Payton] who we’ve played against. They got the kid from Florida [Jack Pyburn], who’s a really good physical player as well coming off the edge. A really good complete team, but defensively all three levels. They got dudes, and I think that coach Kelly has has stated this is his best defense that he’s had and maybe his best team and I can see why when you really study these guys. Should be a heck of a matchup.”