Syracuse vs. Clemson: Shafer Talks Terrel, Dabo Is Poop-Focused

In his ACC press call, Syracuse Orange head coach Scott Shafer talked about the upcoming games against the Clemson Tigers and also touched on some interesting topics about his quarterback, Terrel Hunt. Let's dig in (transcript here)...

On his secondary going up against a team that includes "some of the best wide receivers I've seen on the same team in a lot of years."

I've got a great challenge for our kids. Keon's been there, and Ri'Shard's been there, and Reddish has been there before. They've gone against some of the best at times throughout their careers. It will be new for Whigham a little bit. Great challenge. We've just got to have a good game plan to help them out a little bit here and there.

When talking about what Terrel has to do to lead the Orange to victory...

As long as he does that, we'll have a shot at beating Florida.

Uh...either that's a typo or HCSS is getting a little cocky. OR...Shafer briefly glimpsed into the future and saw Syracuse vs. Florida in a bowl game.

On Terrel Hunt...

I think his work ethic has always been good. What -- I actually told it to him yesterday on the practice field yesterday, the thing that I didn't have a good feel for is when he would put the ball down and take off and make plays with his feet. I think he was in a mode in preseason camp where you can only manufacture a game-like situation so much without creating opportunities for injury.

So the thing that you couldn't see in the preseason was his ability to do what he's done, and that's move in the pocket, slide up, take off with the ball a little here and there, and move the chains. I think he was kind of sluggish in doing that in preseason camp. Because he wasn't going to get hit, he probably didn't go as hard as he should have.

That's what I like to call, "keeping your humble-on-the-outside-not-as-humble-on-the-inside quarterback in check."

On wanting Hunt to play defense at one point...

Actually, that goes back to camp when he was a high school player. I heard he was a good basketball player too. So being a defensive guy, I like multi-talented kids. Those kids are always my best defensive players too.

And we had this air ball tournament where it's kind of just a run around, chuck and duck game we played. He was making interception after interception. It's like, hey, you know, you can always come over and have a home on defense too, and he laughed. So we laugh about that to this day.

On the Carrier Dome crowd he hopes to see...

We've got the ACC coming in here. We've got the No. 3 team in the country. They've got a Heisman Trophy candidate. And I challenge the students to come out and make it a mess out there for them. Make it the loudest the loud house has been in years, and see if they can't be the 12th man that's the difference in the game because they can be. They have been in the past.

They were the difference last year when we beat Louisville when they were No. 9 in the country. They were the difference the year before when Geno came in here with West Virginia. That crowd got so loud they couldn't make their adjustments. And I guarantee you that helped us get a couple of extra sacks.

So I think that our students and our community are taking the challenge on, and my message to them is come out here and show the ACC that the Dome is one hell of a hard place to play in when we're running around and playing football the way we're supposed to play it. Our student body and our community are getting loud.

What Syracuse has to do to beat Clemson...

Well, number one objective is to score one more point or more than Clemson.

Meanwhile, what does Clemson coach Dabo Swinney think of Jerome Smith?

That running back, number 45, he's a load.

That sound you hear is a thousand Syracuse fans

Dabo, keep it clean, please. Can you describe Prince-Tyson Gulley without turning it into some kind of fecal reference?

He's a smaller guy, more of a scat kind of guy

Forget it.