2024 Chaos Scenarios, No. 10: What if Dabo Swinney steps down at Clemson?

The following is part of a 10-part series, wherein I (Connor O’Gara) outline 10 chaos scenarios for the 2024 college football season. These are not predictions. These are, however, things that could happen that would create a significant ripple effect in the sport.

What is chaos, you ask? Last year, Texas beating Alabama caused chaos because it was the preamble for Texas’ return to the national spotlight while the Tide had “sky is falling” energy that prompted a QB change and a discussion about Nick Saban’s future. Saban’s retirement was also chaos because it prompted 4 FBS coaching vacancies, as well as raises for coaches who were reportedly targeted as his successor.

Chaos can come in non-Saban ways, too. Florida State getting left out of the Playoff as a 13-0 Power 5 champion was chaos, as was Deion Sanders beating defending national title runner-up TCU in his Colorado debut. Chaos can come in a variety of forms.

So far, we did:

• No. 1 — What if Ohio State fires Ryan Day?
• No. 2 — The chaotic teams that can win a title
• No. 3 — What if Lincoln Riley actually has a defense?
• No. 4 — A team with multiple losses wins the national title
• No. 5 — A Group of 5 team wins a Playoff game
• No. 6 — What if Quinn Ewers gets hurt again?
• No. 7 — What if Billy Napier gets fired?
• No. 8 — Traditional powers are “back” after a breakthrough victory
• No. 9 — Colorado makes it to a bowl game

Today is the tenth and final installment of the 10-part series for 2024 …

At this point, nobody should be surprised if Dabo Swinney decides that this college football world isn’t for him.

It’s not just that Swinney treats the transfer portal like whether he should start a TikTok account. It’s that Swinney is like the 36-year-old starting pitcher who can’t step on the mound and hit 94 MPH anymore. Unfortunately for him, his command and his offspeed pitches aren’t good enough to get by.

So while Swinney is still willing to take the mound and perhaps put together the occasional quality start, his days of complete game shutouts are in the rearview mirror.

(Excuse the baseball references in a football-centric series, but it’s that time of year. You get it.)

Don’t believe me? OK, explain then how in the 3 years of NIL’s existence, Swinney has yet to produce a top-10 finish in the AP Poll. That was on the heels of 6 consecutive Playoff berths from 2015-20.

It goes beyond that. Swinney prided himself on not using the portal and sticking with the high school recruiting … yet he hasn’t signed a class better than No. 10 in that stretch. Mind you, this was someone who signed the No. 3 class in America as recently as 2020. But to say that the 2020s have been unkind to Swinney would be an understatement.

In the last 3 seasons, Clemson’s lone win trip to a New Year’s 6 Bowl was a blowout loss at the hands of Joe Milton-led Tennessee. In that stretch, Clemson’s lone win vs. an AP top-10 team was in 2022 at home vs. NC State, who ultimately went 8-5. In those other matchups against top-10 teams, Clemson went 0-3 and was outscored by an average of 10 points. From 2015-20, Clemson was 12-5 vs. AP top-10 teams.

Even the most loyal Swinney fan can admit that things have fallen off the last 3 seasons. Of course, the compensation certainly hasn’t. That’s what complicates this. Before 2022, Swinney signed a 10-year extension that paid him an average of $11.5 million for 10 years (2022-31). He’s entering Year 3 of that deal, meaning that he’s still got nearly $100 million still on the table. That’s not exactly money that coaches ever walk away from.

Also complicating that is the buyout that Clemson would owe Swinney if it decided to move on from him. Here are the buyout terms if he’s fired (H/T ESPN):

• 2024: $60 million
• 2025: $60 million
• 2026: $57 million
• 2027-31: Remainder of contract (it starts at $48.8 million in 2027 by my math)

If you thought the John Calipari-Kentucky buyout situation was awkward, you can essentially multiply it by 2 for Swinney. As in, the guy who has 2 of the 5 rings among active coaches in the sport.

We can debate how much sense it makes for Clemson to fire Swinney, but for this discussion, we’re focused on whether he decides to talk away from the Tigers and this new world of college football. Maybe they’d give him a lump sum of $20 million and offer him some sort of administrative role. They can figure that out. As for me, I’ll figure out the chaos.

Clemson is currently involved in a lawsuit against the ACC regarding the Grant of Rights. In a sense, that makes the future of the program unclear. Imagine sitting down for a job interview and at the end of it, the candidate asks an athletic director, “So, uh, what conference will you guys be in a few years from now? Also, what are your plans to potentially pay a 9-figure conference exit fee and how could that impact my duties around here?”

But make no mistake about it — any potential list of Clemson candidates would be long. At least it should be. Say what you want about Swinney’s reluctance to use the portal, but let’s not forget that Clemson was the first university to construct a space that was specifically designed for NIL activity — The Clemson Athletics Branding Institute. Those resources aren’t lacking.

I know what you’re thinking — who could be on that list of candidates to succeed Swinney at a place he’s been running for the last 15 years? I’m glad you asked.

• Eli Drinkwitz, Mizzou
• Jeff Brohm, Louisville
• Glenn Schumann, Georgia DC
• Dave Doeren, NC State
• Lance Leipold, Kansas

Those might not be the splashiest list of candidates as we saw from the Alabama opening (or my proposed Ohio State opening), but Clemson could still poach an established coach and create a ripple effect. Swinney might look like he’s past his prime, but it’s by no means a rebuild job. The foundation is there. It’s not like Clemson lacks boosters who would help recruit in the portal — that’ll still be valued even if revenue sharing and some sort of salary cap is in place — and you don’t have to talk recruits into thinking big at a place with such tremendous success in recent memory.

While Swinney’s potential move wouldn’t necessarily send shockwaves through the sport because of his perceived resistance to change, there’s another piece that’s worth thinking about. No more Saban, no more Swinney. Gone in a 1-year stretch. In the last 10 years, those 2 coaches won 14 of a possible 20 conference titles. During the 4-team Playoff era, they also never lost in the conference title game. From 2015-21, they accounted for 10 of the 14 spots in the national championship.

To say college football would be in the midst of a “changing of the guard” period would be an understatement.

Maybe that offers even more hope to programs knocking on the championship door like Texas, Oregon and Notre Dame. Alternatively, it’s possible that what programs in that group don’t want to see is the right person succeed Swinney. For all we know, Clemson could immediately get back into that upper echelon with the right successor and it’s a 2017 Oklahoma-like push for a title like we saw once Lincoln Riley took over for Bob Stoops.

Either scenario is chaos.

On the surface, there’s something extremely chaotic about a mid-50s coach in good health who has multiple rings that walks away from nearly nine figures. Some would say that Swinney stepping down would be a sign that college football is doomed as another elite coach bows out while others would say “adapt or die” has never been more important and this era was always going to have a few high-profile casualties. I tend to agree more with the latter.

Given those buyout numbers, one would think that only Swinney can decide what’s next for him. If that is indeed a decision to drift off into the Clemson orange sunset and find something else to do in life, we wouldn’t need an investigation into that decision.

We would just need to embrace the chaos.

To look back at all 10 chaos scenarios for yourself, watch the full breakdown, as discussed on The Saturday Down South Podcast.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.