Clemson Football: Swinney shares his thoughts on an "Incredibly well-coached" Duke team
Clemson knows about tough season-openers. The Tigers have made a habit out of scheduling high-level teams to begin their season. Over the past decade, Clemson has played Georgia three times to start the year, at Auburn in week one of 2016, and three conference games to open the season. In 2023, they'll begin their season on Monday night against a Duke team that won nine games last year. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney shared his thoughts on his team's upcoming opponent.
"Duke is a really good football team coming off a great year. You know, got a ton of respect for Coach Elko. [Duke] is an incredibly well-coached team and, you know, a tough opener. Those of you who've been around here y'all heard me say many times, I mean, openers are probably the hardest game. I don't really care who you play. Because it's again, there are just so many unknowns, especially in today's world of college football, there are so many unknowns, whether it be coaching changes, personnel, or whatever. So, you have to spend time watching other people, maybe it's a transfer that came in, so you got to try and figure this guy out. So you're watching the tape is really not relevant to a gameplan standpoint, but you just got to, you know, try to figure out who you're playing, or it's a coaching change or whatever. Or just young players moving up so there's always a lot and then just a lot of time to get ready and then you haven't played football."
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Swinney brings up an interesting point. In this Transfer Portal era, coaches have to spend a lot of extra time watching tape of transfers when they were at their old schools. As for his team, Swinney, like any coach, would like to see more snaps before they open their conference schedule but that won't be happening this year.
"You'd feel a lot better if you were coming off a couple of preseason games, right? Where you had a much better feel for your own team in a game situation. So definitely a tough opener and then you throw in the fact it's on the road, and it's a conference game. So this is a huge huge opportunity for both teams, you know, within our league and, and then again, you throw in the fact that you're playing a very very good team that lost four games last year I think by 14 total points... I mean, they got 1000s of snaps of football under their belt across the board. Especially when you look at them defensively. I mean, they got 19 starters back combined, but even the guys brought in and backups have played a lot of snaps. So this is an incredibly experienced team. And we're experienced, so it's two really experienced teams going at it in a conference game on the road Monday night, Labor Day."
More on Clemson at Duke:
- Dabo Swinney breaks down Duke's defense ahead of Clemson's opener
- Garrett Riley and Cade Klubnik confident heading into Duke week
- How Duke beats Clemson on Labor Day
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