CLEMSON — Head coach Dabo Swinney set the tone for Clemson’s quarterback competition as fall camp officially kicks off, issuing a clear challenge to his signal-callers while detailing how the coaching staff will evaluate the position throughout practice.
When asked about his message to the quarterback room regarding competition heading into fall camp, Swinney emphasized personal accountability, mental resilience, and consistent evaluation.
“Yeah, just focus on what you control, you know?” Swinney said. “Just compete every rep, every rep’s getting evaluated. You know, don’t, don’t get too hot, don’t get too low.”
Swinney noted that bad plays during practice won’t always fall entirely on the quarterback, explaining that the coaching staff’s evaluation will focus on total player knowledge and execution.
“And, you know, sometimes bad things happen. Because the left tackle whiffed, or, you know, somebody ran the wrong route, or, you know, whatever, you know, we’re about, and it’s not just quarterbacks,” Swinney said. “We are evaluating every player based on what they put on the table. You know, do they demonstrate that they have the knowledge and understanding to do what we need them to do?”
He urged the quarterbacks to remain steady and lock in on every detail of their development.
“So just go compete, focus again, focus on what you control. You know, your body weight, everything,” Swinney said. “You’re evaluating their response, their body language…obviously. There’s a lot of, you know, tangibles and intangibles to that position, but those guys are great, man.”
Despite the head-to-head nature of the position, Swinney commended the camaraderie inside the room.
“They’re great friends,” Swinney added. “They support each other. They all understand it. It’s not like they don’t know the position they signed up for. So go play.”
QB Competition Dynamics and Practice Structure
Asked whether practice would be structured differently this year, with a true quarterback competition on his hands, compared to past seasons, Swinney noted that player performance dictates the competitive reps.
“Uh, we’ll see,” Swinney said. “And we’ll see. And again, that’s going to be dictated by the players.”
Swinney highlighted the biggest structural difference entering fall camp compared to where the position stood earlier in the year.
“Um, you know, but I think the biggest thing, structurally, that’s different, going into fall camp, is, uh, than where we were in the spring, is, is, we had to kind of figure out who was gonna be two,” Swinney explained. “And so we came out of spring with those two. So we’ll kind of, now that we can start with where we finished off, and then we, and there was, you know, it was really fun.”
Swinney praised Tait Reynolds’s development during that process as reps were distributed.
“I felt like Tait getting all those two reps made a good jump,” Swinney said. “So we really weren’t there.”
Swinney elaborated on the overall philosophy behind mixing and matching groups throughout camp to properly test players across all positions.
“So now you, and we mix them up in camp all the time anyway,” Swinney said. “You know, we mix and match, you know, we always go ones on ones. We’ll go one on twos, twos on ones. We’ll give some guys reps here, some guys reps here, do that, lots of positions, ’cause we’re trying to evaluate all those guys.”
To demonstrate how evaluations work across matchups, Swinney referenced competition along the line.
“You know, and, you know, ’cause, I mean, if.. If Darian Mayo wants to be a one, well, he’s got to be able to beat Brayden Jacobs,” Swinney said. “Right? You know, I mean, he’s got to be able to, the other team doesn’t call time out, and take their best left tackle out, because you put your back up the end, right? So, you know, we have to, we have to expose people in practice, and that’s part of the evaluation process that we go through; we do that all the time.”
Closing his thoughts on the position group’s setup heading into camp, Swinney pointed to the baseline stability established at the end of spring.
“But I’d say the biggest thing structurally is, we kind of know going in who our 2 are, and then we’ll go from there,” Swinney said.
