Clemson Football: Observations from the final 2020 preseason scrimmage

Clemson football holds its final preseason scrimmage for 2020

The Clemson football team held its final full scrimmage of the 2020 preseason as the Tigers continue to prepare for the start of the season, which is slated to kickoff Sept. 12 against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney met with the media virtually following the scrimmage and passed along what might be the most informative press conference we’ve had to this point in the year.

Here’s a look at a few of the notable updates from the evening:

Swinney gives thoughts on NCAA waiver for scholarship eligibility

"“It’s definitely going to be challenging moving forward on how it’s all going to shake out, but it’s the right thing to do for these players all across the country,” Swinney said. “We’ll figure out all the complexities of it later. I don’t really know right now how that is going to shake out because basically everybody on your roster that’s on the team in 2020 basically has another year. So, basically your freshmen have five years to play five. Your redshirt freshmen and redshirt sophomores and redshirt juniors technically could get six years, if they wanted. Not everybody is going to do that, and you’ll manage that as you go through it.”"

Swinney also pointed out that Clemson football junior Xavier Thomas– who the Tigers were only planning to play in four games this year and redshirt- will now be able to play in as many games as he can, as soon as he brought back to 100 percent and is ready to play. Thomas, just like the rest of the athletes around the country, won’t lose his year of eligibility and will be able to use that to his advantage.

Depth chart decisions will be made for Clemson football

Because this was the final scrimmage for the Tigers, Swinney said today was ‘moving day’ on the depth chart. The Tiger coaches will have discussions about how they order the rotation moving forward as they begin to cut down their reps and turn their focus to preparing for Wake Forest.

"“That’s why you practice. We don’t get preseason games, so you can only go on what you see at practice. You have to start making some decisions,” Swinney said. “Regardless of where you start, the next level of evaluation is game performance. So, we have a lot of conversation.”"

Particularly, Swinney said the competition at the backup QB position would be intriguing moving forward. He also spent a solid amount of time talking about the amount of depth the Tigers have in the defensive backfield. He is really impressed with his cornerbacks and thinks that group may be the best we’ve seen during his time as the Clemson football coach.

One other point about depth: Swinney was asked about contact tracing and how he is handling building depth during a time where we’re seeing outbreaks in some football programs across the country (notably NC State and LSU, most recently).

He said he felt that the Tigers were better equipped to handle that than most programs around the country because they’ve always been about building depth and they’ve led the country in players who get on the field per game each of the last couple of seasons.

Injuries, Injuries & more injuries

Swinney told the media that his team looked like Georgia Tech with all the Yellow Jackets last week during camp. At one point, Clemson had 21 players out due to injuries and protocol, according to the Clemson Insider.

Fortunately, Swinney said the Tigers are getting their health back and more players are returning to practice. Both Lyn-J Dixon and Chez Mellusi are still out due to injuries, but Swinney expects them back next week.

As far as COVID-19 testing is concerned, Swinney said Clemson had its latest round of testing on Monday with no positives. He was proud to see that because the Tigers had the weekend. Clemson is now up to testing two times per week and will be testing three time a week during the season.