Is Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney on the hot seat in 2026?
In an episode of College Football Enquirer, a podcast from Yahoo! Sports, Andy Staples, Ross Dellenger and Steven Godfrey went down the list of some notable coaches on the hot seat entering the upcoming season.
That list, Staples says, includes Swinney.
“I think we are entering a year where Dabo is very much on the table here,” Staples said. “He’s gotta get better, or Clemson is gonna have to do something. And I have thought for a long time that Dabo would be one of those people who says – because he’s known for his stubbornness – that he’d be one of those people who says, ‘You gotta pay me every cent you owe me if you want me out of here.’ I don’t get the sense it’s going to be that way. Dabo strikes me – and I saw him in person at the coaches convention, I’ve been watching everything he said over the last few months – he strikes me as a person who’s been looking in the mirror a lot lately.”
“The quarterback situation where they’re bringing up the longtime backup, the OC hire where they hired Chad Morris, who was the guy who worked 14 years ago in a different era. … I’m telling you, from Dabo’s rhetoric, I think there’s been a little more looking in the mirror,” Staples added.
Swinney is entering his 19th season (and 18th full season) as Clemson’s head coach in 2026.
Swinney has a career head coaching record of 187-53. He is Clemson’s all-time winningest coach, the winningest coach in ACC history and the first coach to lead the Tigers to multiple national championships. The Tigers have won nine ACC titles under Swinney, including eight in the last 11 seasons, while he has guided Clemson to seven College Football Playoff appearances.
Swinney and Georgia’s Kirby Smart are the only active coaches with multiple national titles. In 13 of the last 15 years, Swinney’s Clemson program has won 10-plus games.
However, Swinney’s Tigers head into the upcoming campaign hoping to bounce back from a 7-6 record in 2025, the second-worst season in Swinney’s tenure at Clemson.
Staples thinks that when Swinney was “so emphatic and defensive last year” amid Clemson’s struggles, Swinney “thought that if [Alabama head coach] Kalen DeBoer left for another job, that Bama would call him.”
“I think he understands that’s not happening now,” Staples said.
CBS Sports recently ranked the 10 college football coaches “under the most pressure” in 2026, including Swinney.
CBS Sports also recently published an article on the college football coaching carousel, and Swinney was listed among 25 coaches “to keep an eye on when the carousel starts spinning in 2026” and who “could be on the move after the 2026 season.”
The Athletic recently predicted the head coach for each Power 4 program in 2030. For Clemson, the Tigers’ projected coach in 2030 is not Swinney, but instead … current SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee.
So, if Clemson and Swinney part ways, and he doesn’t retire, where does Staples think he’s going to go?
“He’s either the ambassador to Clemson, or he’s on TV, or he goes to a Baylor-type school,” Staples said. “Or he wins at Clemson and stays. But that doesn’t feel as likely.”