Hurricane Helene: Dabo Swinney shares possible contingency plans for Clemson

With everyone in the south coast preparing for the possible impacts of Hurricane Helene, Dabo Swinney shared what Clemson will be planning for this week, including for kickoff on Saturday.

Swinney addressed the Tigers’ weather plans for the coming days during his press conference on Wednesday. He said that nothing yet had impacted their week of practice besides having to use their indoor facility yesterday.

“Hadn’t changed anything other than we had to come inside today. We started outside but had to come in,” Swinney noted.

As for this weekend, Clemson is set to play Stanford at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday. It’ll be the second conference game for each of them and second-ever meeting between them as it’s their first as opponents in the ACC.

As of Wednesday, Swinney was still expecting their usual day in preparing to play. However, if not, he knows that those in their program and athletics department already have options for them from there.

“I mean, you know, we have a lot of contingency plans. I mean, we anticipate it being clear and a nice game day but, you know, those are the types of things our operations people really spend a lot of time on,” Swinney said. “You know, what ifs – what if we lose power? What if, you know, our hotel loses power? You know, cooking food? I mean there’s a lot of things that you have to really plan for in a situation like that. It may not happen that way but we’ve got to have a plan just in case.”

“Mike Dooley does an amazing job in making sure that, you know, no matter what happens, we’ll be ready to roll,” said Swinney.

The latest projections have Hurricane Helene missing South Carolina after it hits the mainland. The Category 2, but still growing, storm will make landfall later tonight with projections having it coming up through the panhandle of Florida and into Georgia before dissipating from there. That could naturally change, though, depending on the latest regarding the storm and since Clemson is close enough to its path in the northeastern part of its state.

Clemson had no changes to their plans for Saturday yet as of yesterday per Swinney. Still, if there needs to be, he’ll leave it to the Tigers’ administration to decide what’s best for the game.