Dabo Swinney breaks down Duke's defense ahead of Clemson's opener
The No. 9 Clemson Tigers will hit the road on Monday to take on Duke in their season opener. The primetime game on Labor Day will draw a ton of interest from the college football world, who will be looking to see if Clemson has taken a step offensively. Standing in their way will be a very talented Blue Devils team that is accustomed to making big plays.
Leading Duke is Mike Elko who is entering his second season as head coach. In his first season, Elko's Blue Devils went 9-4, losing those four games by a combined 14 points. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was asked which characteristics he typically sees out of a Mike Elko defense.
Mike Elko (Duke Athletics)
"Rarely beat themselves," said Swinney. "I mean, when you watch, you just keep watching the tape, rarely is somebody out of position. They rarely give up a big play bust. You know when you see it right? Sometimes everybody, you make plays, football is football, but rarely do they beat themselves. Very, very smart, very well coached. Their eyes are always where they need to be and just a fundamentally sound group always has been and I think if you really look at his track record and his background even before Wake, you know, that characteristic has always shown up."
One of the biggest catalysts for Duke's turnaround has been the turnover margin. Duke ranked second in the nation with +1.23 a game last year. Swinney has definitely taken notice.
"So, you know, [Tyler Santucci] who was with him at Wake and came over from A&M as well but just a defense that plays hard, plays smart. And, you know, you have to finish against this group, you got to put drives together and you have to finish and then they take the ball away at an alarmingly high rate. They led the nation last year in fumble recoveries, second in turnover margin. So they did a good job of taking care of the ball on offense and they did an amazing job of creating turnovers. So, again, I think a lot of that is just his coaches, they do a really, really good job and they buy into it and again, they use their personnel in a very, very good way and you get in some third and longs on these guys, you'll see some exotic type stuff. So well coached, well-coached group."
