Clemson Tigers College Football Pregame Quote, 12/26/2018

How much can you appreciate the idea of consistency with the defense under Brent [Venables] at a time when, again, it’s really hard to play consistently good defense? Absolutely. That’s been huge. I mean, I’ve been fortunate to be with Coach Swinney from the beginning since he was an interim coach in 2008, so I’ve been along for the entire ride. And there’s no doubt about it, what Brent’s brought to Clemson’s defense has been a big part of our success, and makes our job on offense a whole lot easier. We can be more aggressive and take shots and call the game more aggressive when we know we have a very sound and attacking defense on the other side.

Did you guys know Trevor [Lawrence] would be this good? Yes. I’d be lying if I said no. I mean, we watched him very similar to Deshaun [Watson], you know, since he was a freshman in high school and you could just tell.

You can see it when a kid has that ‘it’ factor and is special and, you know, he probably was a little bit further along when he came in in January than maybe we were expecting. Came from a great program at Cartersville (Georgia).

Joey King as head coach is one of the best high school coaches in the country. So the scheme that he was running in high school, the way that he was coached, I mean, he’s the kind of guy that during his lunch breaks is going into the coach’s office and watching film.

And so I think just his football IQ, you know, you never know that until you get in the meeting room. I think that was a little further along than we expected, but this is not a surprise to any of our coaches because, you know, we knew recruiting him he was going to be the type of player that he is. And going to continue to develop and continue to improve, and that’s exciting as well.

Stay on Deshaun [Watson] for a second. I mean, how do you quantify just how important he was for where you guys have become? Huge, obviously. I mean, Deshaun, you know, for us offensively, you know, Tajh Boyd was a great quarterback for us and really kind of helped us take that next step. And I think about going and beating LSU in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. That very talented defense there and everything that Tajh did and then I think Deshaun came in and really took that next step and leading us into the playoffs and obviously the national championship because of a lot of those offensive skill guys we have.

What do you think about Clark Lea? I kept up with him. I believe he was at Wake Forest before with Coach Elko. So always impressed with his position group and with what he did defensively. I think offensive coaches, whenever you are going through a season, you’re watching a lot of video so you recognize guys that have a really good scheme. Each of our offensive coaches have certain things that they break down.

One thing that I break down every week on Sunday is the big play cut-up. That would be runs over 12 yards or pass over 16 yards. And one thing I noticed about their defense at Wake and defense this year at Notre Dame, not just a lot of big plays. Guys are where they’re supposed to be. Very sound. Not a lot of guys running free and every play is contested, the running game and in the passing game. So I have a lot of respect that he’s done an excellent job this year.