Dabo Swinney breaks down Louisville's running game

Clemson football is in desperate need of a strong bounce-back performance after the catastrophe against Notre Dame their last time out. This week, the Tigers get a look at the Louisville Cardinals and their dual threat quarterback Malik Cunningham. While Clemson is undefeated against Cunninham during what seems like a decade-long career for the Cards starter, he did get loose a few times in last year’s game, which the Tigers narrowly won.

Ahead of this year’s matchup, Dabo Swinney is not letting Cunningham and the Louisville offense’s rushing attack sneak up on them this season. At his press conference this week, Swinney was asked about how he plans to defend Cunningham and the rushing attack. He offered a really in-depth technical analysis of the UL run game and the different schemes and styles of runs they use. In order to stop the Cards, Swinney just wants his guys to take care of their assignments one down at a time.

Here were his full comments on defending the run vs. Louisville:

“Yeah, pretty similar. I mean, you know, there’s some nuances here and there, you know. But they’re a stretch team. I mean, you know, they’re a big stretch team and they’re a zone read team. That’s what they do. It’s really good for them, you know. So they’ve got a very experienced group. So I think, again, it’s nuanced here and there, but they’re pretty much very similar to what they’ve been. A lot of shots off the play action game and, you know, the quarterback is heavily involved.”

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Dabo Swinney still remembers the long run Cunningham busted on the Tigers a year ago. He’s hoping his players will do a better job preventing that sort of explosive play this time around.

“They caught us on a 52-yard run last year. [Malik Cunningham] is still wreaking havoc on that this year, so we got to do a great job of really, you know, playing him well. But these backs are really good, too. And so, just alignment communication and everybody doing their job. Because there’s a lot of option principles built into this too with the zone read stuff. But, primarily they are a a really good stretch team.”

Clemson defense all in on not letting Malik Cunningham or the Louisville running backs loose.