CLEMSON -- Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney again met with members of the media on Tuesday at his weekly news conference, this time on the day of a huge announcement from the university on revenue sharing and NIL and of course ahead of Saturday's Palmetto State rivalry clash with South Carolina.
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The following is an abbreviated transcript of Tuesday's presser.
OPENING STATEMENTS: "Good morning everyone. This week is finally here. It's always a fun week. Our rivalry game is back on a national stage. I think Shane has done an outstanding job. They're playing with a ton of confidence. They're coming in here on a 5-game win streak. They're a few points away from being 10-1.
"Their quarterback has shown great improvement as a first-year starter. It's as good a 1-2 combination as you'll see out there with him and their running back. They execute their scheme really well ... all of them, playmakers, their offensive line. No. 6, No. 8, No. 14 and No. 3, they all make plays. They're big-bodied guys. Their offense is playing as well as anybody.
"Defensively, they're as good as we've seen. They have a great defense. It's mostly the same guys we played against last year. They've played a lot of football. Those two ends are a problem. They've created destruction on that side. All of their players play hard.
"It's a good team across the board. It should be a great game. It's great for our state for this rivalry to have national implications."
Q: A lot of Sellers' success comes when the play breaks down. How dangerous do you feel he is?
SWINNEY: "Real dangerous. Look at the Missouri game. It's probably over if they sack him. It would have been like third and a 100, but somehow he got out of it and found a huge play. That's today's game. If you don't have a quarterback who can make plays like that, you're at a disadvantage. Everyone wants to recruit someone like that. Obviously their scheme will accentuate his skills. They have a lot of quarterback counter and swap zone with the option. They have a lot going on. When he does drop back, they have play action off of that. If you don't cage him up and he gets on the edge, he creates a lot of big plays throwing it and running it. He seems like a great kid and a great leader. He's a problem."
Q: Missouri, you said, had an opportunity for a sack there at the end. How hard is it to get him on the ground?
SWINNEY: "Yeah. He's 242 pounds and can really run. He's a big kid. It's hard to tackle him. He does not go down easy. He's 6'3, 242 and can run the way he runs. Oh and he has something on his right shoulder that can rip it down the field. They have a great run game and a great quarterback. Then they're really good on defense. That's why they've won."
Q: How would you grade how your offensive line has done of late? And their health?
SWINNEY: "They've done outstanding and we're 3-0 with a hodgepodge. Blake Miller hadn't played left tackle since high school. He's played basically two full games there. Trent Howard has really saved us. I guess he's just our November savior. Harris Sewell, same thing. We came into this season feeling great about our depth and it's come through for us. Sadler and Harris and Trent ... they all have all starting experience. Harris started some games last year. Trent got a lot of experience last year. The biggest challenge was at tackle. We played Mason earlier in the year, so we're trying to hold him."
Q: Marcus has been out. Do you still feel comfortable with him at tackle if it comes to that, if he were to be available?
SWINNEY: "Oh yes. I trust him totally. He can play left or right tackle or left or right guard."
Q: Tristan and Marcus ... their status?
SWINNEY: "They're trending in a good spot. I feel pretty good about them, but they have to go practice. We have to go compete today. Hopefully we can get through these next couple of practices and get ready to go, but they have to go do it. They're trending in a good spot."
Q: Wade Woodaz's status?
SWINNEY: "Same thing. It was bad. It was really bad and it took a long time to loosen up to where he could even walk. He was able to practice yesterday and he should get a little bit better each day. Still not 100-percent but he was able to practice."
Q: How do you handle the national implications with your team, given the stakes of this game Saturday?
SWINNEY: "You have to do the things to win. You focus on that. You don't focus on outcomes. You focus on what you need to do to get to those outcomes. You have to do what winning requires. We have a plan to win. Look at the five games we lost during that streak. We had 15 turnovers and they had three. To win games like this, you have to win the turnover margin. It's what championship football comes down to and you have to win the line of scrimmage. You have to win special teams. You have to run the ball effectively and stop the run. You talk about what you have to do to win. They already know all the outcome stuff and what the game means. They know."
Q: This game, having national implications, how much do you embrace the notion that pressure is a privilege?
SWINNEY: "I love it. I know what it feels like. I'm in my 21st Clemson - South Carolina rivalry game. I love it. I love being in the fight. I love the fact that y'all are going to write horrible things about us on Sunday if we stink this up. That's OK. That comes with it. That's what you sign up for. It's a rivalry game. I have a lot of respect for how hard our coaches and players work. I know how it impacts people's lives. I tell our guys to not let the pressure of the moment be greater than the pleasure of the moment. This is what we get to do. It is a privilege for sure to experience the highs and the lows."
Q: You mentioned their defense. How much of what they have done stems from their pass-rush?
SWINNEY: "They haven't had to generate a lot of pressure because they've been able to get it with those four guys up front. Everyone is chipping them. The clock is ticking quick when the ball is snapped. With them not having to bring a lot of pressure, it's helped them on the back end."
Q: How essential is Cade's pocket awareness this weekend?
SWINNEY: "Critical. This is the state championship. You usually don't win championships with average quarterback play."
Q: What's the status on DeMonte Capehart?
SWINNEY: "He didn't practice yesterday but is still getting better. He's day to day."
Q: You see a lot of similarities with what Beamer is doing there to the way you built you program here?
SWINNEY: "Only thing I can tell you is that I've known Shane way before he was the South Carolina head coach. He believes in his players and his people. He is a positive, optimistic, guy. I've always tried to be that way. I think Shane is a great person. He has a great wife. A shoutout to both of them. He nor I would be where we are without those two. As far as how they run their program, I'm not in tune to the inner workings on how he does things. I just know he's a great guy and has a great perspective. He believes in himself and his decisions. There wasn't a lot of belief in me outside of Terry Don when I got this job. It's not like I had some track record, so I had to believe in myself."
Q: Clemson has sent out emails to IPTAY members on NIL and revenue sharing. Your thoughts on today's release?
SWINNEY: "It's critical. A lot of people don't understand the dynamics of where we are right now. We're in the back 20-percent of insanity, the fourth quarter. We have some normalcy in this new world coming, but revenue sharing doesn't start until July 1, so right now it's like wacky land. There's no real standard. What they're doing here is allowing us to do what we need to do before we get to revenue sharing. Right now it's just NIL, which is just pay-for-play. In the past you didn't have any benefits to give to 110 and that has been a challenge. It's not going to be a challenge for revenue sharing. It'll be a difference-maker for us, but we have to get to July. And we're competing against a lot of big NIL schools. People give to IPTAY and get points and credit now. Now it's worked out where you're going to get all of that. It's critical to have the partnership.
"We need to have revenue sharing conversations now, not in July. We know what the number is and it's going to be third party regulated. Sometimes you may have more graduates, so you will use revenue more for acqusition. Right now we have very few spots. We always anticipate some attrition, but we need to be able to have conversations about what the revenue sharing loos like now. The NIL part has been a challenge, but now with peple getting points between now and July is huge. We need everyone's support.
"NIL will be different come July. It'll have to meet a standard. RIght now there's no standard. Come July, there will have to be a standard. That's why we went out and hired ESM, one of the best sports marketing agencies in the country. And we pay a fee. NIL will still be there. If he doesn't mean that standard, you'll get penalized and they'll take some of your revenue sharing. Right now anybody can get anything they want NIL-wise. There will come a lot of regulation. It won't go away but how it's managed will change."
Q: Do you have an idea on what percentage of revenue sharing you'll get (for football)?
SWINNEY: "Yeah. No one will have more money than Clemson. That'll be good."
Q: Has there been any talk about whether it's year-to-year with the portal?
SWINNEY: "We're getting ready to go into the playoff - us and South Carolina potentially having that opportunity. Next week, guys can just pack up and leave. It's not that they want to. It's just the way the system is set up. The NFL has it in March, not November. We have finals and the portal opening up. Now, I love the early signing period. It gets the high school kids signed. To me, there should be one portal window and it should be in the spring. I wish they'd do just five years so you'd get rid of this four-game stuff. I'm glad these guys have opportunities, but we've made it so easy and it's created conflicts. If we had more common sense, we could fix it."
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Q: On the policing of fair market value, do you think it's realistic that it won't be right back in court?
SWINNEY: "I have no idea. I guess in 10 years they'll figure it out. There's a settlement and two sides. It's not the NCAA regulating it. It's a third party, just like the NFL. If you're a penny over it, you've got a problem. I don't know how the big bad wolf will manage it. I'm sure there are some things they're still trying to figure out. I'm sure there will be plenty of lawsuits."
Q: You said (in the past) you did not want to be in a situation where players were paid ...
SWINNEY: "I did not. I did not say that. I said I didn't want to be a part of the professionalization of college ... the doing away of scholarships.
"I love it. I love it. We've kept a scholastic model. Most of these kids won't play professional football, so we still have an opportunity to preprare them for what's next. We've always taken pride in that as we've built men through this program. Now you have real opportunity to do that. We know 98-percent of them won't play professionally. We don't want them looking back and saying that they didn't have good guidance. Now, we'll have financial planners in here twice a week. Now you've got some hands-on opportunity. We're not going away from a scholastic model. We have to go to class. We're in the education business. I wouldn't be here myself if I didn't have my degree."
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Q: You said Clemson will have more money than any other school. How would that work?
SWINNEY: "I said no one will have more money than Clemson. There will be some order. It will be a cap. There's a percentage it will go up every year. You can give whatever you want. You could give all of your revenue share to one player if you wanted. For the first time, we'll have revenue sharing. We've always had the money at Clemson. We just haven't been able to share it. You get to decide how you distribute it throughout your roster. We have a commitment from our administration. At Clemson, we're going to be as good as anyone out there. No one will have more money. That's a good thing. That's a positive."
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