Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney spoke to reporters at his weekly press conference Tuesday, where he talked about the Tigers’ Week 5 opponent, the Stanford Cardinal, and what he’s seen of them on film. Swinney also shared injury updates on two key Clemson starters and more.
“Obviously a new opponent for us that we haven’t competed (against), but we’re excited to welcome Stanford into the league and have a great competition Saturday night,” Swinney said during his opening remarks Tuesday.
Stanford won its ACC opener against the Syracuse Orange last Friday. This is the Cardinal’s first year in the ACC after the collapse of the Pac-12 became official last summer.
When told by a reporter that it was only the second time in history that a team from the West Coast will visit Clemson (the other was Long Beach State in the Tigers’ 1990 season opener), Swinney expressed a bit of dismay at what he called the “newness” of college football matchups.
“It’s kind of crazy. One of my great friends in this business is David Shaw,” Swinney said of the former Stanford coach who led the Cardinal to their last Rose Bowl appearance. “I’ve got to reach out to him this week. Back in the day, we used to talk about that all the time (that) maybe one day we’ll meet up somewhere down the road …
“But here we are. That’s the newness of this era of college football,” Swinney added. “There’s gonna be a lot of matchups that everybody loved traditionally that you may not see as often, but there will be some new matchups like this that you’ll say, ‘OK, that’s going to be interesting.’ So this is a true East Coast-West Coast matchup.”
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On the status of star defensive tackle Peter Woods and receiver Tyler Brown, Swinney said that both were still listed as day-to-day. Both missed Clemson’s ACC opener against NC State, although Swinney said Brown was “close” to taking the field, whereas Woods was listed as out in last Saturday’s official availability report.
“He did pregame (warmups) and just seeing where he was,” Swinney said of Brown. “It was good to see him get out there, but he wasn’t quite ready, and Peter we knew wasn’t going to be available for that one based on where he is. So again, still day-to-day and hopefully he’ll be ready to go this week.”
Kickoff for Saturday’s game against Stanford is set for 7 p.m. ET in Death Valley. The game can be seen on ESPN.
Here’s everything Swinney said at his weekly press conference.
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