CHARLOTTE \u2014 There are people out there, fans and media perhaps, that feel Dabo Swinney has lost his ability to coach.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a popular perception. Or is it a misperception.<\/p>\n
I think Swinney feels it is the latter of the two.<\/p>\n
Clemson\u2019s head coach does not believe he has lost his fastball. However, the argument that he has is an understandable one.<\/p>\n
Clemson Football has slowly declined since the days it was winning national championships and winning the ACC regularly.<\/p>\n
Since Trevor Lawrence\u2019s last pass in the College Football Playoff Semifinals in 2021, the Tigers have been to the CFP just once, and that was first-round loss to Texas. A program that was winning 12 to 15 games on a regular basis, was suddenly struggling to get to 10 wins.<\/p>\n
It then had its first non-10-win season in 13 years in 2023 and last year the Tigers barley had a winning record (7-6), their worst season since 2010.<\/p>\n
Throw in the fact Swinney was reluctant to use the transfer portal for a number of years, and the way schools were exploiting the portal and using NIL to entice players, he became \u201cthe old man yelling at the clouds,\u201d giving the perception the game has passed him bye.<\/p>\n
Has the game passed him by?<\/p>\n
Does he remind himself that he is still the same coach that led Clemson to two national championships and nine ACC Championships?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have to remind myself that,\u201d he said smiling. \u201cI know that. So guys, I don\u2019t really pay much attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
In recent months, Swinney has reminded some in the media that he is at the same age, 56, that Nick Saban was when he came to Alabama in 2007. He already has more wins and national championships than Saban did at this age.<\/p>\n
Swinney\u2019s point?<\/p>\n
He believes he still has a lot of years left and firmly believes he can take Clemson back to the top of the mountain.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust keep going, man. Just keep going,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, we don\u2019t we just need to get on with the season. See if we can win some games. I\u2019ll let everybody else talk about all that stuff, but it\u2019ll create some great conversation at some point. That\u2019ll be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will be fun to see what the Tigers can do in 2026. Maybe Swinney and the Tigers will remind everyone that Clemson isn\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n
If he does not have his fastball anymore, maybe he has a good slider he can throw out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE \u2014 There are people out there, fans and media perhaps, that feel Dabo Swinney has lost his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[6596,399,6600,6598,398,396,397,6597,99,6599,6601],"class_list":["post-772400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-clemson-insider-podcast","tag-football","tag-gymnastics","tag-hero","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-noonan","tag-sports","tag-track-and-field","tag-wednesday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}