Clemson vs. TCU Postgame Quotes

Sept. 26, 2009

Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney

Thoughts on the Game: “The team came out and competed today. I’m glad that we had zero turnovers, which was great for our team. Both of the teams battled it out today, and it came down to a few plays. Unfortunately, they made a couple more plays at the end of the game. It’s a tough loss for our team, but I’m proud that we played consistently, and competed today.”

Thoughts on the Defense: “We didn’t do a good job on the quarterback (Andy Dalton) today. We did a great job defending Joseph Turner (#24), but we didn’t stop the rush from the quarterback as well as we needed to today. “

Thoughts on the Offense: “I liked our effort up front. We did not have Chris Hairston today; however, everyone stepped up and we were able to run the ball today. We had some big plays, but the two critical drops in the end zone hurt us. Overall, our kids fought hard today. Again, TCU just made a couple more plays than us.”

TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson

Thoughts on the Game: “That’s a good Clemson football team. We feel very fortunate to be able to have done it. We had to come up with a couple of plays on offense. They had a very good defense. We had chances. Missed a field goal, and probably should have kicked one early. I felt like on that fourth down they stopped us. When you go to someone else’s house you have to take the game early. I thought we could get a yard, but they did a great job. We made it interesting defensively. We stopped people when we had to. In the last couple of drives we made them kick a field goal. I said going into the game that we had to stop the run and we could not allow Spiller or Ford to catch big passes, and it about beat us. Our kids came back, they fought and made some plays. I think this will go a long way for our confidence to go and win on the road two out of the first three weeks of the season especially coming to the East coast against a very tough ACC and give ourselves a chance to be successful.”

On his team’s first half touchdown: “Sometimes you have to be lucky. We didn’t plan that pass that way. Sometimes you have to have a little luck. We got fortunate on the pass. When you play good people somebody has to make a play on offense. We hurt ourselves today with penalties. It could have cost us on both sides of the ball. It was just a good football game.”

On the play of Andy Dalton: “He ran the football. We had some stuff we felt like we could do in the read option game and we were able to get him loose. We had some surprises that worked well. We did just enough.”

On the impact of the rain: “I don’t know. It was raining on both teams. They moved the ball down two times and we had to stop them on both ends.”

On Kerley getting more touches: “You just do what you need to do. We got him loose a couple of times and we need to do a better job of getting him loose on punts and kickoffs. They had some good coverage today. The thing that was also big for us was that we did not allow Spiller or Ford to have any punt or kickoff returns in the game. For us that was unbelievable and we also got great field position out of it.”

Clemson Player Quotes

Kyle Parker “We had chances early to make plays. I thought we played hard and the offensive line did an outstanding job out there. I’d say the most frustrating thing is that we didn’t win, and I thought we could have. We played well enough to. I’m really proud of our guys.”

Jacoby Ford “As an offense, when you get down in the red zone, you want to put up points, and not just field goals. When you play a good team like TCU, you have to put up touchdowns to put that team away. We put up some points, but just not the ones that we really needed. I think we just have to go out there and man up a little more and play better.”

Thomas Austin “This is the first game that we’ve really been able to open up our offense. We kept them off-balance early on. There were flashes when you could see how explosive our offense can be. We have to be more consistent making those plays on a regular basis.”

C.J. Spiller “Any loss is not good, but we fought, we played hard. We can’t ask for any more. We didn’t have too many critical errors. I thought we played probably the best game we’ve played offensively. You’ve got to give them credit. That was a tough defense we went up against. They don’t give up too many points, but I think our guys did a pretty good job of holding up against them.”