Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers could be facing some dark times
By David Wasson
Published:
Everybody loves you when you win.
Adulation comes in waves. The booster money pours in from all corners. Players are stacked up outside your door practically begging for a chance to play for you. Rings and trophies are stacking up at a historic rate.
You win so much, heck, you might even think about suing to get out of your conference and head to even greener pastures.
Everybody loves you when you win.
Right, Dabo Swinney?
These could be the first glimmerings of the dark times at Clemson, as Swinney’s Tigers fell to 1-3 on Saturday after Syracuse ventured to Death Valley and smacked the home squad around. The final score – 34-21 – was not fully indicative of just how complete the Orange’s victory was, nor was it the most telling visual of just how badly Clemson got handled.
No, that came in the final 10 minutes or so of the game, as Swinney’s Tigers were trying in vain to solve Syracuse in front of a rapidly emptying Memorial Stadium. When the faithful desert you with that much time left on the clock, weather delay or not, you have some explaining to do.
That’s one thing that Swinney certainly has experience in… explaining things. Swinney spent a goodly amount of the week prior to the Syracuse visit trying to re-frame a 1-2 start that included an upset loss to Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
“I would just say, if you don’t believe in us because we’ve lost 2 games down to the last play and we’re 1-2? You didn’t believe in us anyways, so it don’t matter,” Swinney said. “You weren’t all-in anyway.
“Hey, listen, if Clemson’s tired of winning, they can send me on my way. But I’m gonna go somewhere else and coach. I ain’t going to the beach. Hell, I’m 55. I’ve got a long way to go. Y’all are gonna have to deal with me for a while.”
That was Swinney before Fran Brown’s Orange came to Clemson and played like they were the ones worthy of rubbing Howard’s Rock. The Orange may have been out-gained 503-433 by the Tigers, but when you force Clemson into a 3-for-13 drought on third down and keep Clemson from converting on all but 1 of its 5 attempts on fourth down… you just played harder for longer.
In fact, Syracuse did practically nothing else statistically that particularly stunned Clemson other than pull out to a 24-7 lead in the second quarter and then go up 34-14 in the third quarter – all the while keeping Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik from going off and making it a more competitive game.
This was not how the first half of Clemson’s season was supposed to play out by a fair stretch. Ranked No. 4 in the preseason polls, the Tigers dropped a 17-10 opening decision to LSU and then trailed Troy at halftime of Week 2 before pulling out a win.
But losing to Georgia Tech on the road completely dropped Clemson out of the Top 25, and Saturday’s loss to Syracuse now has a Swinney-coach Tigers team at 1-3 for the first time in his 17-year tenure at the school.
In fact, Clemson has only turned in 1 losing mark in that time – going 6-7 in 2010. In 13 of the last 14 years, Clemson has won 10 or more games. And there is the little matter of a ton of ACC titles and national championships in 2016 and 2018.
“All we’ve done is win,” Swinney said earlier this week. “We’ve won this league 8 out of the last 10 years. Is that not good? I’m just asking. Is that good? To win your league 8 out of 10 years, to go to the playoffs 7 out of 10 years, be in 4 national championships, win it twice. Yeah, we’re a little down right now. Take your shots. I’ve got a long memory. We’ll be all right. We’ll bounce back.”
Along the way, though, Swinney has famously disavowed working the transfer portal the way nearly every other FBS team does – preferring to grow his talent coming out of high school. That was a great strategy 10 years ago, but times have changed… and Swinney simply hasn’t.
Note: This isn’t a bunch of coded ways of saying Clemson needs to fire Swinney. Any coach who has dominated a Power 4 conference and won multiple national crowns the way Swinney has at Clemson deserves plenty of rope to figure this out. And anyone who doesn’t think that Clemson deserves to stick with Swinney during these dark moments is simply ignorant to the fact that it is dang hard to win year after year after year.
Still, the sight of Swinney nearly in tears with his Tigers after Saturday’s loss to Syracuse – arm in arm singing the alma mater in a nearly-empty Memorial Stadium – is a shock to the system. So, too, is having to look at the bottom of the ACC standings and work your way up to find the 1-3 Tigers.
Et tu, Dabo? The beleaguered coach spent almost all week leading up to Saturday defending his record and his program. Now, with an off week looming before Clemson travels to play North Carolina on Oct. 4, there will be plenty more navel-gazing and introspection on just how much of that rope to give the most decorated coach in Clemson history.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
