CLEMSON QB TREVOR LAWRENCE
On offense’s strength with run-focus Wake game & pass-focus today:
“It shows we’re just getting better every week. That’s what we’re trying to do. We had a really good two weeks of preparation, and I really feel like we’re getting better every week.”
On comfort in games:
“I felt really comfortable. It was really good. The offensive line played really well, the backs blocked well, and obviously, the receivers caught the ball well. All the way around, we played a good game.”
On opponents keying in on certain strengths:
“We do a lot of different stuff, but we’re going to have some tendencies. We do some things well, so we’re going to have some tendencies. Teams try to take that away… like today, they tried to take the run away, but we have a lot of different things that we can do to counter that.”
On coaches’ message for game:
“We just didn’t want to leave any doubt…of [whether] the game should have gone a certain way. At the end of the day, I think we did that. We didn’t leave any doubt. It’s clear that we won the game by a good bit. That was the coaches’ message to us.”
CLEMSON CO-OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR TONY ELLIOTT
On Trevor Lawrence’s performance:
“I think all of us know how talented [Trevor Lawrence] is from the arm perspective with what throws he can make. It was really good to see him do it on that stage. We’re talking about a top-25 matchup. It’s the first time for him really in a big game like that. For him to come out and not just make the big throws but manage the system and get to the throws. Not all of those were called designs telling him where to go. A lot of them were run/pass options. He just understood what we were trying to accomplish. They had numbers in the box, and he made those throws.”
On the offense’s versatility:
“Jeff [Scott] and myself, over the past four years, have tried to build an offense that can take advantage of what’s available. I think we’ve done that in the past. What’s comforting to see for these guys is that now they can understand the identity of what we’ve been in the past...an offense that’s going to take advantage of what’s available. If we need to run it, we can run it. If we need to throw it, we can throw it. If somebody’s dead set on taking something away, we have to take what’s available. It was good for those guys to get a glimpse of what they’re capable of.”
CLEMSON CO-OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR JEFF SCOTT
On the game:
“I’m really pleased with the way our guys came out after an open week. Something we’ve been talking about all year long with the offense is getting off to a fast start. I don’t believe we’ve scored on the first drive [this season] until today. We knew that was going to be critical versus a good team like NC State. We really wanted to set the tempo and help our defense out by getting a touchdown, so [I’m] really pleased by that.”
On NC State “daring” the offense to throw the ball:
“Yeah, they [NC State] were, and we knew going into the game that’s what they do defensively. We knew that we were going to get challenged, we also had a lot of confidence going into the game that our quarterback and receivers were going to make those [plays].
CLEMSON RB TRAVIS ETIENNE
On momentum of the opening drive:
“It was important. The last couple of weeks we’ve kind of had a slow start, so we really wanted to change that and get it started early. We wanted to keep the momentum going throughout the game.”
On moving to 7-0:
“We really just try to get ready for the next game. We come in every Monday and focus on the next opponent. We treat the next game as the most important every time.”
On current state of the offense:
We feel confident. We can run the ball when we need to and we can pass the ball when we need to. It is going to help us further along in the season. If you take away one of them, we still have a pretty solid offense.”
CLEMSON LINEBACKER JALEN WILLIAMS
On third quarter interception:
“It was second or third down, and we knew they were going deep. I just did my job. The quarterback threw it, the ball came, and I knew I had to attack it. I go against [Hunter] Renfrow every day and, as you guys have seen, Renfrow can catch the ball 180 degrees, so you have to attack the ball. It was a competitive play, and I just went for it.”
On facing a strong passing team:
“Coach Swinney really challenged the back seven to defend the passing game this week. During the Texas A&M game, we gave up a lot of passes, so it was going to be a challenge for us. We had two weeks to prepare, and Coach Venables called a great defense. You can’t give him two weeks to break it down and prepare, because he will execute.”
On the NC State rivalry:
“Top-25 wins never get old, especially in conference play. They’ve been talking all week, and we knew that, for the past three years, this has been a tough game. We knew as a team that we were better, so we wanted to come out and prove who we are as a team.”
CLEMSON NICKEL BACK ISAIAH SIMMONS
On limiting third down conversions:
“Coming in, they were one of the top teams in the nation in third down, and that is a huge indication of success. We wanted to make it an emphasis to slow them down and make it hard for them to convert on third down.”
On seriousness of this game:
“As a team, we really took this game personally because of all the talk that has been going on this week. Every single person wanted to make sure that there were not questions after this game.”
NC STATE HEAD COACH DAVE DOEREN
On the game:
“You have to give Clemson a lot of credit because they played really well. Obviously, I don’t think we did and I own that. We turned the ball over and weren’t good on third down. We didn’t tackle well enough and [Clemson] played a really good football game. I give Dabo, his staff and his players credit. We just didn’t do the things we needed to do today.
On outcome versus past games against Clemson:
“We are disappointed, for sure. I thought we were going to play a heck of a game and we didn’t. Like I said, it just didn’t go our way. It was 14-0, and we had the ball at the 50, and we turned it over in two straight series. It just got away from us, and we couldn’t get in a rhythm. For us, rhythm is important on offense, and we didn’t have any. Defensively, we were in a lot of tough positions today.”
On weakness in the pass rush:
“They protected well. We’ll have to look at some of the protection stuff but they protected well. We didn’t win enough one-on-one blocks in the pass rush and their offensive line did better than we did.”
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