Dabo's all in with Notre Dame

CLEMSON - Wednesday’s announcement of Notre Dame’s partial membership with the ACC met Dabo Swinney’s approval.

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After Wednesday’s practice, he spoke with reporters about Notre Dame and the ACC.

“I knew they were in conversations when we had our meetings back in late July. I had no idea that was happening today, until after the fact…I think it’s a real positive. I don’t really see a negative,” Swinney said.

Notre Dame’s tradition is one of the biggest draws, according to Swinney.

“When you have a program like that which chooses to join your conference, that’s nothing but a positive thing,” he said. “Where it goes, who knows?

“To play five games, that’s outstanding for our conference. We’ll see what happens down the road. But I think it’s a win-win for everybody. It’s great for our other sports. It kind of stabilizes the league even more than it already was, in my opinion.”

With Notre Dame now slated to play five games against ACC opponents, Swinney hopes their addition is the catalyst for a move away from the nine-game conference schedule.

“I would love that. If we can get that worked out, that’d be great,” he said.

According to Swinney, he’s not the only coach in the ACC who’s against the nine-game schedule.

“No coaches were for the nine. That was pretty unanimous in our room, but that wasn’t something we got a vote on,” he said.

INJURY UPDATE: Gifford Timothy, who missed the Ball State game with a knee injury, is expected to return. D.J. Howard should be back after bruising his shoulder against the Cardinals. Also injured against Ball State was David Beasley [knee].

“Giff and D.J., I definitely want them to play and see them playing. David wants to play,” Swinney said. “I’ll probably just make a decision Saturday whether I’ll let him play or not. I think he’s going to be pretty close to 100 percent. I just don’t want him to have a set-back.”

He added, “Tig Willard, I think he’ll be available as well. He looked good today. He’s another one of those guys I’ll make a decision on this Saturday.”