Dabo Swinney was ready to clap back at his critics.
The confetti had fallen. The dance celebration in the locker room had come to an end. Plans for the pizza party the next day were already in motion.
It was just after 1 a.m. at Bank of America Stadium, where Swinney had just hoisted his ninth and arguably most memorable ACC championship trophy on a frigid night in Charlotte. With a 34-31 win over SMU on Dec. 7, the Tigers coach had extended an impressive streak: All 16 of Swinney’s recruiting classes since Clemson lifted his interim tag in December 2008 have won at least one ACC championship.
More importantly — on this night — the Tigers were headed back to the College Football Playoff for the first time since 2020. The 55-year-old Swinney, who has been under as much scrutiny as anyone in college football for his views on the transfer portal and roster management, was ready to have his say.
“This is our 14th year in a row with a postseason win. Nobody ever has done anything like that in college football,” Swinney said, proudly wearing his ACC championship hat. “But all we hear is how bad we are and how terrible we are and how stupid I am and how … whatever.
“We just keep winning. We just keep winning.”
Zoom out, and Swinney is correct.
The Tigers have advanced to the College Football Playoff seven times since its inception in 2014. Only Alabama, with eight trips, can top that. Swinney has won two national championships — both against Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide — in the 2016 and 2018 seasons. In 2021, quarterback Trevor Lawrence became the program’s first No. 1 NFL Draft pick. Since 2009, only Saban and Georgia’s Kirby Smart have more wins against AP top-10 opponents than Swinney, who no doubt will have a spot in the Hall of Fame waiting for him someday.
1️⃣4️⃣ straight years with a postseason win.
Uncommon 🐅🏆 pic.twitter.com/zCCAwnUs4r
— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) December 8, 2024
But the vast majority of Swinney’s accomplishments occurred at a different time in college football, one that predated name, image and likeness and the transfer portal. The Tigers have lost at least three games in four consecutive seasons, after dropping just seven total from 2015 through 2020. Clemson has lost twice to rival South Carolina in the past three seasons — both at home — after winning seven straight in the series from 2014 through 2021. The Tigers opened the 2024 season with a humbling 34-3 loss to Georgia.
So now, a program that dominated the sport just a few years ago, finds itself in the role of the pesky underdog as it heads to Austin to face Texas in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
In many ways, this is a referendum on Swinney and the Tigers.
Beat the Longhorns — or even keep it close in a loss — and Swinney can argue that his methods are effective, that he doesn’t have to compromise his principles to compete with the top teams in the SEC and Big Ten.
But if the Tigers look outclassed, this berth in the expanded Playoff might be viewed as fool’s gold. Clemson, after all, would never have been in position to win the ACC title and earn the automatic bid had Miami not blown a 21-0 lead to Syracuse in the final week of the regular season.
The discourse around Swinney and his views of the sport will only ramp up.
“I know everybody wants me to be like everybody else,” Swinney said. “But I don’t know how to be like everybody else.”
The first signs of trouble came early in the 2021 season after Lawrence and his supporting cast of skill players departed for the NFL.
Former five-star quarterback DJ Uiagalelei took over and struggled mightily. Clemson’s offense stalled, ending the season ranked 99th in yards per game and 103rd in yards per play. Several analysts wondered whether Clemson’s scheme was part of the problem. The Tigers eventually went 10-3 and missed the ACC title game for the first time since 2014.
The 2022 season went similarly. The offense showed modest signs of improvement, but the Tigers went 11-3 and ended the year with a disheartening 17-point loss to Tennessee in the Orange Bowl.
After a second straight three-loss season, Swinney finally showed a willingness to make changes, firing longtime assistant and former Clemson quarterback Brandon Streeter after just one season as the offensive coordinator. Swinney made one of the splashiest hires in the coaching carousel when he brought in Garrett Riley, the architect of TCU’s explosive offense that played a large role in the Horned Frogs’ march to the national title game.
Riley’s hiring coincided with former five-star Cade Klubnik’s taking over as the full-time starting quarterback. Was Clemson on its way back?
“We’re going to be violent and fast,” Riley said in his introductory news conference. “I think it starts there, whether we’re in the run game or it’s the passing game.”
Things didn’t improve. The Tigers opened the year with a stunning 28-7 loss at Duke. They were 4-4 two-thirds through the season, with wins over Charleston Southern, FAU, Syracuse and Wake Forest.
Clemson salvaged the season (to a degree) by winning its final five games, but a 9-4 record was nothing to celebrate for a program that had been accustomed to competing with the very best in the sport.
Swinney made some more difficult decisions, parting ways with offensive line coach Thomas Austin, a former Clemson player, and defensive ends coach Lemanski Hall, his former Alabama teammate, after the regular season. He replaced them with respected coaching veterans Matt Luke and Chris Rumph.
Still, the scrutiny ratcheted up a notch heading into 2024 with the Tigers once again non-participants in the transfer portal.
Swinney didn’t flinch.
“It’s hard to be someone else. It’s already tough enough being yourself,” defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin said recently of Swinney’s conviction. “But he stays focused on the main things, and at the end of the day, he can live with himself doing that.
“It’s not about a team, it’s about a program in college football. And no one’s done it better than him in this era — him and Nick Saban.”
Clemson’s offense has taken steps forward this season, but there are still some troubling numbers. The Tigers averaged 45.0 points in seven games versus FBS teams with a .500 or worse record but only 19.2 points in five games against FBS teams with a winning record. Their passing numbers as a whole are improved — thanks to Klubnik’s development and Clemson’s noticeable improvement at wide receiver — but they rank only 10th in the ACC in yards per attempt (7.3). The regular season ended with Klubnik’s throwing a game-sealing interception deep in South Carolina territory with the Tigers down just 3 points.
Special teams have also been a problem. Yes, Nolan Hauser sent the Tigers to the Playoff with a 56-yard field goal to beat SMU, but place-kicking was an issue all season. Clemson had eight kicks blocked, including two field goals in a home loss to Louisville.
And yet, here the Tigers are — back in the Playoff.
“I’ve been taking shots since I got this job. What’s changed?” Swinney said of the criticism. “I’ve been taking shots for 16 years and we just keep winning. We just keep going about our business.”
Klubnik said the team has never wavered.
“It’s easy to lead when things are going good, but it’s hard to lead when things aren’t going good,” he said. “I think that most of the guys would say that he’s the reason they came here — because of coach Swinney. … I’ve got full trust in him.”
There have been signs that Swinney is willing to adapt to the new landscape of college football — at his own pace.
Just this week, the Tigers dipped into the transfer portal by adding 6-foot-5, 205-pound wide receiver Tristan Smith from Southeast Missouri State.
Swinney has also been bullish on revenue sharing, proudly declaring last month that “nobody” would “have more money than Clemson” once schools are permitted to distribute about $20.5 million with student-athletes as they see fit. He took exception before the South Carolina game when a reporter suggested he once said he did not want to be part of college football if players were paid — referencing Swinney’s comments from 2014 when he said, “As far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me. I’ll go do something else because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.”
“I did not say that. Never said that. Never said that. Never said that,” Swinney said last month of threatening to quit if players were paid. “I said I don’t want to be part of a professionalization of college athletics — no scholarship, going away from a scholastic model.
“That’s not accurate. That’s not accurate.”
Also last month, Clemson athletic director Graham Neff penned an open letter to donors, asking for their financial support with Clemson’s collective, the 110 Society. Swinney might not like where college football is headed — but he hates losing more and is willing to pivot when he deems it necessary.
“I couldn’t be more convicted and supportive of coach Swinney, two-time national championship head coach, and how he has built his current program,” Neff said earlier this fall.
“Let alone where his strategies and his nimbleness quite frankly (lie) ahead.”
After Clemson lost to Georgia in the season opener, Swinney reminded his team that if it took care of business, the Tigers might have a chance to redeem themselves and end the season exactly where they started.
The winner of Texas-Clemson will head to the Peach Bowl. The national championship game is in Atlanta. Both games will be played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“That’s the plan,” linebacker Barrett Carter said, “to end back up in Atlanta not just a second time, but a third time, as well. That’s just been the message ever since that loss.”
Texas is favored by 11.5 points and enters Saturday with a top-five defense and top-20 offense. Aside from Georgia, the Longhorns will be the most complete team the Tigers have seen all season.
Well let’s go then. pic.twitter.com/U5YSI7xwvY
— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) December 8, 2024
Klubnik, returning to his hometown of Austin, will need to play his best game to date. But Clemson, which is undefeated in true road games this season, should be prepared.
And there’s no role the Tigers love more than the underdog.
“Everyone likes to hate on Clemson for some reason. We don’t get it,” Carter said. “But it’s truly us against the world. That’s how we like it.”
Should Swinney and the Tigers pull this off, they would draw No. 3 Arizona State in the quarterfinals.
The stakes are high for Swinney, who joked that the winner advances while the loser “gets ready for Santa.”
Regardless of what happens, don’t expect him to abandon his principles any time soon. But don’t expect him to let college football pass him by, either.
“No one’s done it better over the past 16 years,” Goodwin said of his boss. “Clemson is set up and built to last in this era.”
(Photo: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
