Clemson recently put the finishing touches on one of the best college football facilities in the country. They've got a great indoor practice facility, some beautiful practice fields, and one of the most impressive football ops facilities around.
So one might wonder why Dabo Swinney and his staff decided to move practices from the beautiful confines of their regular practice field and indoor facility to somewhere much less perfect. Instead of the area that they normally have practice, Dabo moved the team workouts next to the football operations building beyond centerfield of their baseball stadium.
Swinney told The State that there are two reasons behind the change of venue, the first one being a test of mental toughness and seeing which players can handle it, and which ones are going to complain, while also providing some big picture perspective.
"One is it’s just so perfect over there. Everything’s just amazing. I just want them to remember where we came from. We come over here and it’s not real perfect. It’s kind of lumpy. We do the best we can,” Swinney said. “I found a rib over there and a chicken wing. There’s no shade. We’ve been going two weeks so this is the point of camp where we’ve got to develop some mental toughness… You see who is going to embrace it. There’s a bunch of gnats out there. You see who is going to embrace it and who is going to give into it.”
By practicing on a less than ideal field, Swinney adds that he hopes players have a better appreciation for the nice things they have when they return to the regular practice area for game week.
Not a bad idea...