FSU football: Clemson’s Dabo Swinney heaps praise on 2019 Noles
By Kelvin Hunt
FSU football got some nice compliments courtesy of Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney. Is it the truth or coach speak though?
FSU football will face its greatest challenge of the season when they travel to take on No. 2 ranked and defending national champion Clemson Saturday at 3:30 p.m ET.
The Noles opened as huge betting underdogs at +27.5 which is the largest I’ve found since playing Florida in 2009.
FSU head coach Willie Taggart spoke on the challenge of playing Clemson during his Monday press conference and channeled his inner Ric Flair.
He said, “To be the man…you gotta beat the man….and Clemson’s the man right now.” So it was interesting to see what Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney had to say about the Noles during his press conference Tuesday
Dabo: Florida State is the most talented team we play. They out recruited us the past 5/7 years or more. On paper, on roster, they are the most talented team we play. They should be 5-0. The biggest thing is: they are getting better together
— Clemson247 (@Clemson247) October 8, 2019
Dabo: "It all starts with stopping the run and winning the matchups. It's handling tempo, lining up properly, and doing it over and over again."
— Clemson247 (@Clemson247) October 8, 2019
Dabo: "If we win the turn over margin, we win the game."
— Clemson247 (@Clemson247) October 8, 2019
Dabo: Clemson vs Florida State. This is my 17th Clemson vs FSU game and it's a special game and it never gets old. In the past, whoever wins this game goes on to represent the Atlantic in the ACC Championship.
— Clemson247 (@Clemson247) October 8, 2019
Thoughts
Dabo Swinney isn’t telling the whole truth but he isn’t lying either. On paper the Noles have out-recruited Clemson aside from the last two recruiting cycles.
However, I’ve documented how much of those high ranked recruiting classes under the old regime were fool’s gold with 53% of the blue chip players from 2015-17 not contributing or are no longer with the program at the time I wrote the piece.
Injuries and lack of development or just sheer misses in evaluations were the culprit on most of those players.
He’s right in that FSU football should be 5-0 going into this game.
He’s right about Clemson winning if they do the things he mentioned too. They’ve been able to shut down FSU’s offense the past two years while winning the turnover battle. FSU has two turnovers in each of the past two games.
Clemson has dominated the line of scrimmage, field position and has had better quarterback play too.
Related Story. 3 Disturbing In-Game Trends For Noles Against Clemson. light
It’ll be a tall task for the Noles but hopefully they can show they’ve been able to close the gap between the two programs from last year to this year.