Notre Dame Fighting Irish College Football Pregame Quote, 12/26/2018

Is there anything about Clemson’s offense you think might be undervalued? I think they’re overall a great team. Their offense is really awesome. They have a lot of playmakers. To have a team like that, it comes with problems. They’re going to really challenge. We understand that. That motivates us to be our best and execute our game plan the coach put together to be in the right places to succeed.

What stands out to you about the running back [Travis Etienne]? Very fast, has great eyes. You give him a lane to cut into, he’s going to cut into it. He’s a great player. He has great feet, and he can get to the edge really fast in a hurry. So he’s a great player.

How much impact do you feel like it is to not have Clemson’s star defensive tackle? How much does that impact the defense? Chip Long said it probably won’t impact the game plan. But being a defensive guy how do you think that would change things? I mean, we’re a team. On our defense, we have 11 guys. We play with 11 guys. We don’t play with just one guy. We understand that if someone goes down, it’s a man up. He’s going to be ready to do his job. The important thing about our defense is we all do our own job. We understand that and go out and do the things we need to do individually to help our team win.

When you look at Clemson’s offense what is it that you see that kind of stands out with them? Very explosive, can score in a hurry. They have great receivers, have a great running back. It’s really hard to relax. You have to play hard all game because they’re really good and they can put a lot of pressure on you.

Talk about Trevor Lawrence as their quarterback. He adds to the team being a great player and being able to get the ball to those playmakers on the edge and the running break. Him being able do that really makes the offense hard to stop.

When you watch them, can you tell he’s a freshman or does he look like an older guy? He looks like an older guy. He looks very comfortable in their system. He looks like he’s been in the system for years where he knows to make the checks. He knows where to get the balls for certain plays and understands downs. And he’s a complete player at a young age, which is very impressive. He’s a great guy.

When you see Number 9 running back [Travis Etienne], does he run bigger than he actually is? He breaks a lot of tackles, looks like he has a short, lower body. So it’s going to be hard to bring him down. We’re prepared. We’ll do everything we can to go out on Saturday to win. We respect those guys. We know that they have talent on that side of the ball, but it motivates you to work harder.