Coordinator corner

This week’s Dabo Swinney buzzphrase: Chunk plays.

No, it’s not in reference to the tunnel screen, Wildcat keeper or play-action bootleg that has nearly led to the decapitation of Clemson’s quarterbacks the last few years – both plays the Tigers should have chunked from the playbook awhile ago.

Miami’s offense has produced a lot of “chunk plays,” Swinney repeated Tuesday, meaning long gains in which they’ve picked up substantial chunks of yardage.

Kevin Steele used the same phrase as well, which I presume will lead to a midweek brawl over copyright infringement.

To the interview transcriptions …

KEVIN STEELE, DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR

Q: What are the defining characteristics of a Mark Whipple offense?

A: The run game is obviously very NFL oriented. It’s traditional, but multiple in formations. So what they try to do is get you in the wrong gaps by not adjusting correctly.

Q: You have to be fairly confident in your calls right now based on various players’ production.

A: (Laughs). Well, trust me, it’s not the Xs and Os. It’s players. But we’re still a work in progress and always will be.

We ran two pressures against Wake Forest that they’d never seen before. But quite honestly, I’d never seen before, either. Occasionally you’ll have a mistake. Now, they worked.

Maybe we’ll put them it.

We have a lot of tools. We just have to make sure we have them lined up in the right place, give them a chance, don’t make them think too much.

Q: Is it all about pressure Saturday?

A: No, no, no, not at all. You live the sword, you’ll die by it, too. They’re a chunk-play offense. You look at them and they get big chunks on plays. So we’ll have to pick our times when to pressure him.

But he handles pressure well for a young quarterback. And their offensive line is very well coached. So we can’t just go in there and say we’re going to throw caution to the wind.

Q: Best skill you’ve faced thus far?

A: You know, we don’t necessarily look at it that way. It’s looking for the mismatches – what will they be looking for to mismatch us, and how can we counter that or get mismatches.

They have a lot of receivers who they all look the same and keep running them out there. Their center and left guard and tackle, I think have 30-something and 40-something starts.

Q: Back to Wake – has Corico Hawkins shown something to merit the significant playing time he received?

A: We’re not going to put anybody in we don’t have confidence in, especially when the game is on the line. He’s earned the right to play and has the ability to do so. And he understands what he’s doing.

I’m not a big redshirt guy personally. Of course, it’s not my decision, it’s the head coach’s decision. But I love to play them, and if you’re going to play them, they need to play.

Q: Where is the pro background evident in Whipple’s offense?

A: Pro influence. That’s the best way to describe it. You can see he knows how to create mismatches with formations, and his run game is traditional.

It’s not about just necessarily pounding sand in a rat hole – he’s going to formation you and make you adjust to things and beat teams that way.

Q: Have you crossed paths with Whipple at all?

A: I don’t know. I wouldn’t know. He probably doesn’t know if he’s crossed paths with me either, though.

Q: What do you feel has made Jacory Harris successful this year?

A: Well, obviously I’m not there and not in a meeting room with him. I can only watch it from TV, and that’s like watching a soap opera and saying you know the actor. You don’t.

But what shows up on film is he manages the game very well for a young guy. He doesn’t allow his actions to beat his team. Then, when he gets into crucial situations, he has the calmness to make a play. And that’s what you have to do at that position.

Q: Six games into the season, ranked in the top 10, is the defense where you thought it would be production-wise?

A: Nah. Of course, you have to be careful statistically evaluating yourself. Who has No. 5 played? The opponents have something to do with it.

Everybody’s rushing stats would be different if they played Georgia Tech, one way or the other.

The way you have to look at it is, are we getting better where we need to get better? Are we long-sticking on a fire zone better? Are we understanding the concepts of things? That’s what we evaluate.

Q: Talk about Da’Quan Bowers’ development.

A: It’s been an unbelievable process, now. That guy, boy, he’s really smart. He now is at the point where we’re actually giving him some ability on third or second down to, based on the set and what he sees, to call the pass-rush himself. To call the front. Because he’s really bright and understands what we’re doing and can apply himself.

For a guy who’s 19 years old to do that. And then to go play the way he’s playing. He’s what I’m talking about when I say go watch the film of him playing the six technique in the spring, then watch it now. It’s night and day.

When he gets everything right, obviously he has the tools.

Q: Would you prefer Harris stay in the pocket or be forced to roll out?

A: It’s kind of hard to say (you want him to) throw out of a well when he’s 6-5. That would be a deep well. But you have to affect him.

They have a lot of plays designed to get him on the move, moving the pocket. And he runs the boots and nakeds. So I don’t really know. I’d rather have him on the ground if you give me a choice.

Q: Does this team throw more vertically than you’ve seen this year?

A: Yes, very much so. Very, very – not necessarily now – but Oakland Raiders-type. They’re going to throw it deep, now. And they’re going to throw it deep often.

You go in that defensive room and look at all them formations up there and all them routes on the computer printouts. You see a lot of long lines.

BILLY NAPIER, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR

Q: How many rounds are you going this week?

A: Well, we might need a little bit of that today. That would be a good thing. No, our guys will be ready to go today. I think they’ve figured this thing out.

Their preparation during the week is obviously critical to them playing well, and they’re finally seeing that, obviously. It’s a pretty young group, to some degree, at certain positions, and that’s coming together.

It’s amazing what a good win will do to your morale. And hopefully they won’t forgret. We’ll have to remind them early today, don’t forget how average you were when you weren’t focused and you weren’t preparing the right way, and the details weren’t important.

We’ve got to keep our thumb on them. We’ve got to keep our energy high, our intensity high, our detail high.

Q: It sounds like the pivotal person in the process has been Kyle Parker.

A: He’s a redshirt freshman. One of the things that comes to mind when I sit back and think about it and try to evaluate where he’s at as a player is not only is he a first-year starter, but he’s also a guy who never really observed a guy preparing to play.

He hasn’t been around for a couple of years and watched maybe how the starter went about his preparations throughout the week.

We’ve been trying to teach him, and he’s living and learning through trial and error, how to have a good week of preparation.

And I think we did a better job of coaching as a staff, managing our time. There were some things maybe a little bit different from a staff standpoint that freed me up to do my job better and coach our quarterbacks.

It’s a combination of things, but the critical thing was him figuring things out a little bit better each week.

Q: Dabo was talking about when the offense is behind schedule, that it really shrinks your call sheet. How has being in better situations on second down allowed you to be more comfortable as a play-caller?

A: From a down-and-distance standpoint, we call a successful play anything more than 4 yards on a first down.

Our goal is to be 55-percent efficient, 4 yards or better.

When it’s second-and-1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, then you’re capable of throwing another run at them and really keeping third down manageable. Or you can still gamble. You can do a lot of things.

The success rate on third down is a lot better when it’s 6 or less than when it’s 7 or more. So when it’s a second-and-6 or better, you can afford to get a zero, maybe, on that down.

Defensively, they don’t know what you’re going to do. It really allows you to be unpredictable, and I think that was a really good thing Saturday. We were keeping the defense off-balance.

Second-and-long, it’s a 10- to 12-play call a game national average. And we’ve been around 14 the first five games. So there have been two or three more than you like. Whereas Saturday, that number went way down.

And we didn’t get to third down much Saturday. We’d make a first down and continue to move the chains. We rarely had to go to the third-down sheet until later in the second half.

Q: How important will communication be at Miami? That seemed like an issue at Maryland.

A: Absolutely. As a staff, you’re thinking like us now.

We’ll do some things differently in practice today to prepare for that, and as the week goes on.

But the main thing is that now that (Parker’s) been there and experienced that – Maryland, that was a unique deal. Early in the game it wasn’t a factor, and he had to make the transition.

Miami is notorious for their rowdy fans, and we’ll have to be prepared.

Q: Where do you get some of those numbers on averages on first and second down?

A: There’s numerous studies out there on down-and-distance numbers.

In preparation for the season, we used our average last year from the last six games to compile how many we’ve got to get ready for the game.

Just trying to look at the volume of offense we carry into each game. What’s a good number for each situation? What’s too much? Sometimes, for example, you come in on a Sunday and a lot of staffs will work on goal-line and you spend too much time on it. Because in reality, there’s really only going to be maybe one of those a game. Maybe two, maybe three.

So your time needs to reflect how many of those there are going to be in a game.

Q: Is Michael Palmer’s emergence a reflection of Chris Hairston being back, or is it borne of necessity by not having a lot of receivers?

A: When we plan who we are trying to formation to get involved, he has strengths in that he is a very dependable, high-IQ guy with great hands. Very smart, and he’s really good when maybe it’s not (happening) exactly like you coached him it was going to be. He can adjust.

He understands the big picture. He can anticipate things. He’s been in the plan all along, and he’ll continue to be in the plan as well as those other guys.

Q: Did you pare down your receiver rotation last week?

A: There’s just so few of them. We don’t have nearly the scholarship numbers there that we will have in the future. So that number is just kind of, they are who they are.

They get about the same work regardless because they are really only two-deep. I don’t think that’s been as big a factor as what you’d think.

Q: It doesn’t seem like Miami tries to scheme you too much and instead relies on their athleticism.

A: They feel like they’ve got good enough players to where if they’re not confused and they’re playing fast, then they can play good defense. I think most good defenses are that way.

They’re very fast. They’re trying to prevent the big play with the way they play.

They’re not overly complicated, but they’re sound and they’re playing fast because they know what they’re doing. And they’re extremely talented across the board at every position. So it’s not uncommon for a team that’s really talented to be pretty simple. They don’t have to scheme to hide guys and that kind of thing.

Q: How do you duplicate what you did against Wake Forest with only one week to prepare?

A: That’s the true challenge.

In the back of my mind, that’s the question I’m making sure each day — not only our players, but what do our coaches know? What do they know about Miami? How well do they really know what we’re trying to do in a normal week?

Hopefully our meetings and practice will reflect their sense of urgency and their detail we’ll need to win the game.

Q: Do you see any of John Lovett’s fingerprints on Miami’s defense?

(Napier was the on-field defensive graduate assistant five years ago in 2004 when Clemson beat Miami. He served under Lovett, then Clemson’s defensive coordinator is now Miami’s DC, although it is widely regarded as coach Randy Shannon’s system).

A: Yeah, I see some of the stuff they do as a reflection not only of what he did here, but maybe what he learned at North Carolina when he was with Butch (Davis). And obviously working for coach Shannon, who’s heavily involved in the defense, there’s a blueprint that they kind of pull from there.

I think it’s a combination of all those things. We’re all products of who we work for and when.

Q: What are some of those fingerprints?

A: John always really believed in not being too overly complicated. He really believed in those guys understanding and being able to adjust, knowing the big picture and playing really fast.

He didn’t want them to ever be confused. They’re very similar to that. Most good defenses are that way.