Ben Boulware balks at comparison of this year's team to 2016 group: "There’s no way" |
Former Clemson linebacker
Ben Boulware admitted he was in a bad mood when doing a weekly analysis segment for The Roar this week, and he
was not particularly feeling something Clemson head coach
Dabo Swinney said recently.
Swinney lauded his team's effort despite the 2-2 record this week, and even made the comparison to the 2016 team in some early season struggles before the year crescendoed into a national title year. Boulware, a member of that 2016 team, saw that in a group chat this week and wasn't having it. “I’ll never speak bad about coach Swinney, ever, til the day I die, because he’s elite and an incredible man and coach. Dude is just freakin’ awesome," Boulware told Out of Bounds on Thursday. "I saw where Swinney tried to compare this team to the 2016 team, and that the 2016 team stunk but was luckier than this version of the Tigers. I’m just like, 'Dude, I love you Swinney…' And I know I’m not in that locker room. But come on. The 2016 team would whoop this team right now. We would freakin wipe our butts with this freakin team right now. So I saw that quote, and I was like, ‘Dude, there’s no way.’ We’re not even in the same spectrum as this team. I love Swinney. He’s gotta do damage control, obviously being the head coach, and say we’re a couple of plays away, and maybe we are. … I watched the entire game Saturday, but obviously I’m not in the film room and knowing exactly what plays are going on. "But come on, dude. They’re not the freakin’ 2016 team. I know we lost to Pitt but we had some dogs on that team – first-rounders, dudes that are still in the NFL…Someone sent me that ‘Dabo Swinney says this team compares favorably the 2016 National Champion team,' and I’m like, ‘No they don’t. No they freakin’ don’t.” Boulware pointed to some potential gaps in talent compared to a team like 2016 or some of the other Playoff runs for why this season hasn't been righted yet going into Saturday's noon kickoff at unbeaten Syracuse. “I feel like over the last few games it’s been kinda stupid mistakes. And I get we make mistakes and never are going to be perfect," Boulware said, "but maybe this team is making these mistakes and we’re not good enough to cover up for them. When we’ve made mistakes in the past, we’ve had some dogs out there that are first round guys or you had Deshaun (Watson) or you had Trevor (Lawrence)...Where you could make mistakes, but you had these guys out there that are elite that kinda cover up for them and it doesn’t really affect the whole game and maybe that’s what the issue is…Maybe the talent isn’t what it’s been in the past, and again, my opinion – I could be totally wrong, but these mistakes have kinda forced us to lose games and in the past we’ve made plenty of mistakes and hadn’t played perfectly but we still had 10-11+ win teams." Boulware wasn't confident that Clemson would be able to avoid multiple losses in the rest of the regular season. "They’re (Syracuse) a 4-0 team right now. So I’m not feeling too confident go up to New York right now," Boulware said. "Unless we do something totally different, it’s about to be an 8-4, 7-5 team this year…That’s what it looks like right now." (H/T Clemson On3 Sports)
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