Q & A: Jeff Bowden

When you look at the films, do teams still try to take the run away from you guys? Is that part of the reason you are going down the field a little bit more?

Bowden: There were a couple of times where I was disappointed with some of our decisions at the line. I really wanted him to go with the run. There're times we're giving him the option at the line and he chose the pass, and I wish he had gone ahead with the run call. That's the learning process for him. When you are teaching a kid to make decisions at the line, and you're doing it a little more than we've ever done it around here, you're going have to learn to live with four or five bad decisions until he gets experience and confidence at it. That's where we are right now.

When you look at the injuries that Clemson has had in losing two starting linebackers and a safety, does that tempt you to keep trying to run it? (Clemson opponents are averaging just 78.5 yards rushing per game).

Bowden: The game is still going to come down to us blocking their front seven. We've got to get the ball to their safeties first. They've got a couple of guys up - the Gaines (Adams) kid. He is a ballplayer, but we have to do some things to help us with him in our running game.

I just told the kids that we're going to find a way to still hand the ball to the backs and protect them. There's just going to come some times they are going to have to handle safeties. Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't.

Does it feel like the stats the first two weeks are sort of misleading given the circumstance with what Miami's defense was the first week and what your game plan was on Saturday?

Bowden: No. They are not misleading. Because when I look at our rushing attempts, I don't see enough attempts. Some of that goes to what I was saying when you talk 50-50 in the decision (by the quarterback) to run it or throw it. I'd rather it be 65-35 (run).

Especially when you look at the replay, it looks like Lorenzo Booker or Antone Smith had a little bit of a hole they could have gotten 5 or 6 yards where they danced instead.

Bowden: Book had one, I think it was mid-fieldish, we ran a sprint draw and the thing bounced outside. The tight end and fullback slid out and blocked their man perfectly. Book bounced it and followed them, but had he gone north-south at that point instead of the sidelines, there was nobody (to tackle him). He just made a poor decision on that particular play. That was one of those decisions that could have gone and immediately given you 50 yards of rushing offense.

What do you do with Xavier Lee at this point to get him into the game?

Bowden: Believe me, that conversation happened before the game and it happened during the game with us. We just didn't feel it would be fair to (Lee) to put him in under those circumstances. We wanted to have the pressure of a ballgame (him) being early in the game, but you don't want to put him out there when there's actually a chance to lose a game. I don't know if that sounds right, but we just didn't think it would be fair to him at that time. . . . What happens if you go in and don't pull it off? What do you do, blame him? To me that game was like it was because of a very sorry first-half performance. Period.

Going back to the audible. Will you continue to let Drew have freedom with that?

Bowden: We will, but I have to be a little more guarded with it because we're having some miscommunication. We had it the first play of the second series. That's two games in a row, and I can't allow that. Because that's coaching now. When it's confusing a good player, I can't do that. When he is confident in what he is doing, he can play.

You talked early about north-south running and too much dancing. Have you thought about maybe playing a bigger guy, such as tailback Jamaal Edwards?

Bowden: That belly play in the running game was there most of the night. I wished I had called it earlier. We hadn't really done a good job of attacking away from our tight ends.

To answer your question, I don't know. We had a pretty good talk with our tailbacks (Monday night) in our first meeting since Saturday's game about too much dancing, too much sideways stuff. I thought to be honest with you, Antone (Smith) did some pretty good north-south running especially on some of those screens he got. He went up the field.