On Wednesday afternoon, Clemson participated in its first scrimmage of spring ball. It was the final day of practice before the Tigers head on spring break. Dabo Swinney hinted at some checking out from his quarterback, and frustration, or perhaps satisfaction, watching some younger players get exposed.

Swinney said the following players missed the team’s scrimmage:

Here’s an abbreviated transcript of Swinney’s availability:

We were able to put the ball down and play a little bit. Obviously we’ve got a lot of guys out, so you’re mixing and matching some things. Sometimes you’ve got some guys you know can’t play, but they gotta be in there because we need 11 guys. But it’s good, we just gotta keep going, gotta develop our team. I thought defensively, they were awesome in the red zone today. They turned the offense over in the red zone a few times. But I thought we were too casual with the ball on the offensive side. All in all, first scrimmage, first time to play, and coach, kind of creating a game environment. I thought we were really undisciplined, a bunch of really critical penalties, personal fouls, I had to throw a guy out. But a lot of guys flashed, and guys are competing. Just gotta keep improving, individually and collectively as a team. Our strength has never been in any individual around here, it’s always been in team, always been in depth.

We got a ways to go to get to that point.