Posted by: Josh Kendall on December 12, 2012

Dabo Swinney has a high-profile assistant coach who has interviewed for another job, a critical recruiting period on his hands and a team full of players who are knee deep in finals this week.

He also has a game to prepare for, Dec. 31 against LSU in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, and he wasn't pleased with how his team focused on that game when it returned to the practice field this weekend.

"Sloppy, pretty disappointed with our first day to be honest," he said.

He has a solution for that.

"I wear a size 10. The first thing you do is you stick it right in their rear," he said. "Everybody needs a little motivation from time to time. It's nothing that a few gassers can't help. Sometimes young people don't automatically focus. That's called coaching. That's part of our job. I can assure you we had a nice session after practice today. We are going to get it out of them one way or another."

LSU coach Les Miles has built a program Swinney would like to model his after, he said.

"They have a culture in place and they have a system in place and they all know it," he said. "They have recruited to it. They are not a team that has any weaknesses at all."

Clemson lost its two biggest games of the regular season - to Florida State and South Carolina - and Swinney hopes his team can reverse its second half performance from those games and get over the hump against an elite opponent.

"It really truly comes down to three or four or five plays," he said. "In those two games, we haven't made those plays, the opponent has, that's what this game will be. We have to take that last step and make those critical few plays and avoid some critical mistakes."

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Josh Kendall is a staff writer for CoachingSearch.com and has covered the SEC for more than 15 years for papers such as the Athens Banner-Herald, Macon Telegraph, and The State. He’s the father of two boys who he’s hoping don’t inherit his wide receiver frame and offensive guard feet. Follow @EyeOnCoaches on twitter and send your feedback to josh@coachingsearch.com