Bowden Looks Ahead To Game Against North Carolina State

Oct. 5, 1999

Clemson Coach Tommy Bowden’s comments on…

The importance of other players stepping up their play when Brandon Streeter got hurt “There is no doubt that what the other players were able to do when Streeter got hurt was very important. I thought Woody did an excellent job. Playing well in an ACC game in front of a packed house and on TV was a huge confidence boost for not only Woody but also for the rest of our team.”

The tempo of the Clemson offense and the effect the fast pace had on the North Carolina defense “With the pace we use on offense, we try to eliminate the other team’s defensive coordinator and the defensive leaders from the game. Jeff Davis brought up interesting point to me the other day. A defensive captain usually has good leadership skills and the huddle is his time to jump on the other guys that are not getting the job done. By not huddling we try to eliminate that aspect of the game for opposing defenses. I don’t know if conditioning was a factor for North Carolina or not. All I know is that conditioning has not been a factor for us in any of our four games.”

The special teams of NC State “The fact that they have blocked something like five punts and have returned three of them for touchdowns and one for a safety definitely gets your attention. If we get one blocked it will not be because we were not prepared for it. From the minute I took this job we began working on kick protection. We are not going to be able to increase the time we spend on kick protection but knowing what they have done in the past forces us to make our preparation time more efficient.”

The Clemson offense under Woodrow Dantlzer as opposed to Brandon Streeter “There will be a few wrinkles put in the offense because of Woody’s running ability. There is always the possibility of running the option when you have a guy like that at quarterback. Alot of his scrambling will come naturally though and in this offense he will have the opportunity to make some big plays. That run he made against North Carolina was really an impressive run. He broke alot of tackles and he ran like a tailback.”

Facing an experienced NC State secondary “One of their base defensive fronts is to rush three and drop eight. The most you can have is five receivers. Eight defenders can cover five receivers pretty well. That is one of the main reasons they are so good against the pass and have alot of interceptions this year. There are not many good routes you can run when they have eight people guarding your receivers. They have a very good secondary. They probably have the best secondary that we have seen so far this year.”

The importance of Clemson getting its first road win “As I have mentioned a couple of times, there are certain steps that you have to take when you are building a program. One of those steps is being able to win on the road. With only five home games, it would be very good for us to win at least a couple of these road games.”