Dabo Swinney and the Tigers took down Wake Forest 51-45 last season in a wild double-overtime game on the road.
Swinney touched on his team’s performance against Wake Forest during his weekly radio show Monday night and was not happy with what he watched on tape. If it were up to Swinney, that tape may never see the light of day again.
“They’ll be confident… We stunk against them last year,” the head coach said. “Probably the worst defensive game I’ve been a part of in a long time. Thankfully, we are night and day from where we were in that game last year defensively. We’re really playing well. I almost want to burn the tape and never watch it again. We actually played really good offensively. It was maybe one of our top two offensive games.”
It definitely wasn’t a defensive battle against the Demon Deacons. The two teams combined for 96 points and a ridiculous 1006 yards. Even so, a win is a win, and Swinney has won 14 in a row against Wake Forest.
Can he continue the run on Saturday? The Tigers have the talent but will need to play like it.
“They’re the same old Wake Forest,” Swinney said. “They’re the slow-ride mesh, and they’re gritty. They always got receivers, and they got good running backs, and they’re tough on the defensive side, they’re well-coached. They’re always well-positioned. They play a lot of what I call catch technique on the back end. They’ve got one D-end that’s really good. They’ve sacked the quarterback with pretty high numbers. So, it’s a good football team. They’re 3-1. They’re coming off their first loss. They’ve had an open date to get ready for us. So, another big challenge for us. But hey, we’re just trying to find a way to win another game and keep going from there and hopefully somehow get to 4-2 here in the open date, get healthy, and see if we can keep it rolling.”
While it is one of the ugliest offenses to watch, the slow mesh can be effective. It will be interesting to see how the Clemson defense fares this season against it.