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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 19, 2011

Dabo Swinney

COACH SWINNEY: Good to be back with y'all today. We've got another tough challenge this week with this North Carolina team. They're a very, very complete football team, probably as good as anybody we've played, and really just a play or two away from being 7 and 0, as well. Very well coached; Coach Withers and his staff have done a tremendous job.
Offensively they're very balanced and got a good running game, good passing game. And defensively it's a bunch of NFL guys running around over there, and they've got a returner that leads this league. So just a complete football team.
But we're glad to be back at home this week, and this is a big week for us. With that, I'll take whatever questions you have.

Q. Just address the play of Adam Humphries. Seems like a guy with all the great talent, you brought in a wide receiver that may have been under the radar a little bit and first caught the coaches' eyes on special teams but seems to be making key plays in a receiving role, as well?
COACH SWINNEY: Yeah, he's a heck of a player. All those freshman receivers that we brought in are very good players, including the one that we red shirted, Stanton Seckinger. We're excited about Stanton, too. It's a really good group. Adam was just tremendous all through camp. We really initially wanted to try to red shirt him, but he would just perform so well, we felt like, man, this guy is going to help us win this year, right now. So we've played him, and he's playing on special teams, and he's made some critical plays for us. We've just got a lot of confidence in he and Charone Peake and Martavis Bryant. That's our three other freshmen that are playing outside of Sammy Watkins. But Martavis and Charone are as talented as anybody in the country, as well. Those guys are all making a contribution and just going to continue to get better. But appreciate you asking about Adam.

Q. With Adam was the main idea to red shirt him just for special teams initially?
COACH SWINNEY: No, no, we decided to play him because we felt like he could help us win games at receiver, and he's been our second team receiver since day one at what we call our two man position behind Sammy. He's taken advantage of his opportunities. But we've really mixed him in more here these last couple games, and you'll continue to see that, and it's because he's earned it. He's a playmaker himself, and Adam, Charone and Martavis, all three of those guys we feel like are ready for bigger roles as we move forward.

Q. It seems like you guys have yet to put together a complete game, even though you're undefeated. I'm just wondering how close you are to that.
COACH SWINNEY: Well, that's a good point. We really have not put it all together yet, and I'm anxious to see us do that. The closest we've been was Boston College to be honest with you. That's probably the closest we've been to really, I mean, just putting it -- all three phases together. We had a few mistakes that kept that from happening, but again, that was the best film from all three phases that we've had.
You know, we've just got to continue to improve and keep learning from our film and our mistakes. The thing I do like about our team is they complement each other well. One week it's been the defense, the next week it's been the offense or the special teams like you saw this past week. They're just finding ways in all three phases, and to have a good year, that's what you've got to do. But hopefully down the stretch, as we really get going deep into this second half here, we can become a little bit more of a complete team.

Q. What's your take on the defense to this point?
COACH SWINNEY: Well, they've played really well the last three weeks up until Maryland. I mean, our defense was -- man, outstanding, up at Virginia Tech, and really, really good against BC and did -- I thought really came on in the Florida State game. But we obviously did not play well at all up at Maryland, and you've got to give Maryland some credit for that. They did a good job in getting ready for us in a week's time, had a little bit of unknown going into it, but I guarantee you that the teams that play them from this point on, they've seen plenty. That's a good player up there at quarterback.
But we're just still a little bit of a work in progress on that side, and we're still trying to develop the depth. We've got a lot of guys that play a lot of snaps, which is, if you've followed us the last couple years, not something we like to do. We like to rotate a lot of guys in there, especially up front, but we're still developing some guys, and so that's been a little different for us.
But I like our young secondary. I think those guys are growing up and they're getting better and better each week. Again, we'll learn from our issues the other night and hopefully play better here at home against North Carolina.

Q. Paul Johnson said this week that his team had played a number of weeks in a row, and he found that it was -- that he would really have preferred an open date earlier in the season. It looks as if you've played a number of games in a row, too, and when you saw that schedule before the season, did you worry that your open date wasn't until November?
COACH SWINNEY: Well, I mean, there wasn't any sense in worrying about it because it wasn't going to change. But you have to be conscious of the fact that there's a cumulative effect of just the games and the practice, and it's not just that we've played seven weeks in a row. You've got three weeks of camp, too, so it's ten weeks. You go ten straight weeks here with no break. So what you have to do is be smart with how you practice.
I've made two or three adjustments in our routine the last couple of weeks trying to keep our guys fresh and really watching the reps during practice. I've cut some time off of our periods and things like that, just to try to get us over the hump here physically and mentally. I know our guys, they'll go play hard. I don't have any issues with that. They're going to play tough, they're going to play hard. But you've got to be smart and try to keep them as fresh as you possibly can. So we're big into getting these guys in the cold tubs and trying to talk to them about getting their rest and eating the right things. All that stuff matters as you get deep into the season.
Right now it's time for us to just grind. We've had fall break this week, which could not have come at a better time for us, so our guys got a break from school Monday and Tuesday, and I think that's really helped them. We probably had the best Monday we've had all year this past Monday, which was really good, and yesterday was good.
But we've got a grind. We've got an open date coming up after Georgia Tech, and then hopefully we can kind of get everybody healed and fresh and then make a stretch run.

Q. Talk about what you learned about your team in the comeback win 35-17 in the third quarter on the road.
COACH SWINNEY: Well, I don't know that I learned anything that I didn't already know. What I saw was great leadership, but I've seen that all year. I mean, we were down 14 twice to Auburn, so you know, it's -- I've seen a lot of resiliency with these guys on several different occasions this year. And I think that's one of the things that helped us the other night with the schedule that we've played, the adversity we've already had to deal with. I do think that that helped them because they've kind of been in some tough situations already, and they just keep playing.
But that's a great credit to the leadership that we have. These guys are -- have a good resolve to them, and they just don't quit, and they feel like somebody is going to do something to get us back in it. You never want to go in at halftime down, but our guys know, listen, it's a four-quarter game, and that's how it played out the other night.

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