Swinney Learned Early: It’s Not About Schemes, it’s About Players

Since the days of C.J. Spiller, Clemson coach has always used a touch chart.

Ken Ruinard / USA TODAY Sports

CLEMSON, S.C. — At halftime in his first game as Clemson’s interim head coach, Dabo Swinney looked at his stat sheet and wondered why C.J. Spiller had just two touches to that point in the game.

Spiller, who is now Swinney’s running backs coach, was an electrifying player and running back at Clemson from 2006-’09. With one touch, the ACC’s all-time all-purpose leader could take the football to the house.

“I did not even have a touch chart, and was like, ‘How many touches did C.J. have?’ They were like, ‘He had like two.’ I am like, ‘What is wrong with us?! We have lost our mind here.’ I ended that,” Swinney said. “Starting that next week going to Boston College we are going to have us a touch chart here and I am going to make sure we are forcing the ball where it needs to go and giving guys opportunities to make plays.”

Swinney’s first touch-chart coach was his oldest son, Will. His job was to let his dad know if Spiller went too long without touching the ball. He did not have to remind his dad too much.

Spiller went on to become just the third Clemson player at the time to earn unanimous All-American honors, while becoming the 2009 ACC Player of the Year.

“It goes back to the very beginning as an interim. I did not think we were using C.J. Spiller the way we needed to,” Swinney said. “I think that was part of him coming back, too. I told him we are giving him the ball. We demonstrated that the latter part of the games.

“But man, we are making this way too complicated. Let’s get the ball to the guys that can make plays. You got to block and all of that stuff, but players make plays. And if you do not give them opportunities to make plays, how are they going to do it?”

These days Swinney has a staffer who keeps up with touches for players such as running back Will Shipley. It will be important for Shipley and the other playmakers to get as many touches as possible if the fifth-ranked Tigers hope to knock off No. 21 Wake Forest on Saturday.

“Sometimes you have to create an opportunity for a guy to get the ball,” the Clemson coach said. “Then sometimes you have a guy that is a special player that is a problem (for the defense) that you have to create mismatches for. We just try to have some balance.

“Some of these teams we play, they have one guy, and the others are okay, but they got one guy. We, fortunately, have always (had multiple). In past years that’s what made us so good, we had more than one guy. We have been able to attack in multiple ways. We have multiple guys that can make plays. That creates the type of balance and selflessness and those types of things that I think wins at the highest level.”

As Swinney said, it is a hard balance and depending how the flow of the game is going determines how those special players touch the football.

For instance, Shipley had 14 touches in last week’s win over Louisiana Tech. However, one of those touches came on a 32-yard touchdown run.

Clemson had two one-play scoring drives in the Louisiana Tech game.

“It is more about the feel of the game,” Swinney said. “Sometimes you make it too hard, right? Maybe we are struggling or something and you look down and it is about players. It is not plays, it is players and let’s make sure we are getting those players opportunities to touch the ball. So, I have just always been mindful of that.”

“You are always trying to create matchups, one-on-one matchups and take shots,” he continued. “But it is all predicated through the run game.”

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