GLENDALE, Ariz. — Clemsoning used to be a derogatory term.

It seems unfair now, after the 14-1 Tigers won an ACC championship and came within a few plays of the program’s second national title. But, according to urbandictionary.com, Clemsoning is “The act of delivering an inexplicably disappointing performance, usually within the context of a college football season.”

Coach Dabo Swinney has turned it into something else: reckless abandon. Or, if you must, B.Y.O.G. — bring your own guts.

Clemson has all season, including a fake punt against Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff.

Whereas even sweet older Southern belles get passive-aggressive with coach Nick Saban if he “only” wins an SEC title, Swinney and Clemson were not going to face much criticism for losing a competitive national championship.

If one of the coaches were to throw caution to the wind in the second half and pull out something crazy, an off-the-wall risk, wouldn’t it be Swinney? Or at the least, Tide offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, only for Saban to overrule him?

Flash back to Hannah Storm’s sit-down interview with Saban and Swinney before the game.

Storm: What’s the most challenging part for you of being a coach?

Saban: Well, I think guys like him. Who are young, aspiring. Different approach. I’m always trying to learn more from younger people in our profession who do things a different way. And I think Dabo has sort of been a trail blazer in the way he’s done it at Clemson, and the success that they’ve had and the process that they use. So we’re trying to learn all the time and grow.

Storm: Who is there more pressure on in this game, do you think? Yourself or Coach Swinney?

Saban: I don’t look at it that way at all. Just because this is a bigger game doesn’t necessarily mean that the decisions are any different in terms of what’s right or wrong. Or how you should approach it or go about it. And this is hard because of the external factors that affect everyone.

One of the most overlooked aspects of Saban’s success is his willingness to adapt.

We’ve spent years focused on “The Process.” Every post-championship press conference now includes a scripted question-and-answer about Saban skipping the celebration to immediately start work on the next year. We marvel at how he’ll spend a half-hour late at night driving to a four-star recruit’s house — just so he’ll have the route down for his home visit the next morning.

But for a man sometimes cast as a dictator and micromanager, he sure is open to change.

Offenses began going up-tempo with great success. After leading what became a failed political movement against the hurry-up no-huddle, Saban hired Kiffin. The last two seasons, Alabama has mixed plenty of no-huddle offense into its repertoire.

That in vogue strategy also reduced the effectiveness of Saban’s favored defensive approach. No longer could Alabama mix and match personnel based on down-and-distance, substituting liberally. So Saban started recruiting more three-down players.

Bama won several titles with some of the stingiest defensive backfields in the country. Safeties like Mark Barron and Landon Collins served as additional linebackers, crashing down against the run, and deterrents downfield, bruising many a receiver. But as the Tide began to give up too many deep passes, Saban hired Mel Tucker to coach defensive backs, switched two former cornerbacks to safety and installed a bunch of high school track stars at cornerback.

The result? A team that led the nation in sacks, led the nation in interceptions and could beat you any way that your defense allowed.

The man is 64 years old. He’s won five national championships. Only Bear Bryant has claimed more. He gets paid in excess of $7 million per year to coach college students. He’s got this football thing figured out.

Yet Saban seizes every opportunity he can to learn from others. It’s why, as soon as the Philadelphia Eagles fired Chip Kelly, Saban met with him to pick his brain about offensive concepts.

Did Bobby Bowden do that in the latter stages of his career? What about Joe Paterno? Was Steve Spurrier reaching out to the latest up-and-comer to tweak his offense at South Carolina?

Saban may not have sourced the onside kick from Swinney directly. Clemson’s fake probably didn’t inspire the idea. Rather, through meticulous study, someone on Alabama’s staff figured out that the opportunity existed based on the Tigers’ alignment during kickoffs.

But when Alabama needed it most, Saban had the nerve — Dillon Lee chose different rhetoric, referencing a portion of the male genitalia that symbolizes bravery — to let loose and take a calculated risk.

Saban, not Swinney, took the biggest gamble in the national title game. The 7-point favorite wasn’t afraid to play like an underdog. Wasn’t afraid of the repercussions. Wasn’t afraid to ditch his persona for something more useful.

Saban and special teams coach Bobby Williams consulted throughout the game, wondering if they should deploy the onside kick they’d practiced a dozen times. Then Saban pulled aside junior kicker Adam Griffith and asked if he was ready to execute. Satisfied with Griffith’s answer, Saban gave a three-word edict: “Let’s do it.”

“I ran out there, tried to act normal,” said Marlon Humphrey, according to ESPN.”I didn’t want to give anything away.”

The redshirt freshman cornerback recovered the kick despite several drops in practice.

Two plays later, O.J. Howard’s 51-yard touchdown gave Alabama a 31-24 lead that it never relinquished. In a game filled with momentum swings, that one call is what we’ll all remember.

“The way we line up on kickoffs with squeeze formation and try to corner-kick the ball, when a team squeezes the formation like that, we call it ‘pop kick.’ I thought we had it in the game any time we wanted to do it,” Saban said.

“I made the decision to do it because the score was 21-21 and we were tired on defense and weren’t doing a great job of getting them stopped. I felt like if we didn’t do something or take a chance to change the momentum of the game that we wouldn’t have a chance to win.”

Leave it to Saban to out-Dabo Dabo.