Tag: dabo swinney

As I’ve said before, I can see why people have a lot of fun playing for Dabo.

Dabo’s the best. I hope he’s having good luck getting the Tigers ready for December 31.

I hope Dabo has to make good on this.

Improvements like this are what helps keep the program strong in future years.

I get the feeling that Dabo Swinney likes his job.

An excellent column by Dan Wetzel on Dabo Swinney’s time as head coach. A taste:

> Swinney had planned for everything: offense, defense, pregame speech. There on a Friday night at the team hotel over in Anderson, however, he realized he hadn’t prepped for the Tigers’ pregame tradition of touching Howard’s Rock and running down the steep, grassy hill in the east end zone of their massive home stadium, his players charging behind him. The assistants don’t run it. They walk onto the field from a different entrance. It’s an honor bestowed on the head coach.

> “I just sat there and thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to have to run down that hill tomorrow in front of 85,000 people and a bunch of people with TV cameras.'”

and

> “It’s a reminder, every week, that ‘man, people care.’ It’s just a game, but it matters. It’s important how we play and how we represent this university. People drive five hours to watch you play and then drive five hours back. They spend their money on this. A lot of these guys aren’t wealthy. We have a blue-collar fan base.

> “We may not win all our games but how we compete, how we play, the pride that we take in playing the game a certain way, should be important.”

After reading this piece, I am an even bigger fan of Dabo than I was before. Every Clemson fan should take a few minutes to read it.

This is probably a good decision, even if I would prefer that coaches were not required to go to such lengths.

Dabo comes in at 20:

> He’s matured from excitable young boy to proven winner, with 21 victories the last two years and a validating Peach Bowl triumph over LSU. But with quarterback Tajh Boyd back and experience on both lines, the Clemson faithful would like a victory over hated rival South Carolina (he’s 0-4) and a run at a national title. There is no dress rehearsal with Georgia as the season opener.

That sounds about right.[^fn1]

[^fn1]: I am getting more nervous about the Georgia game by the day.

Dan Wetzel writing for *Yahoo Sports*:

> There are no obstacles in Dabo Swinney’s mind, just opportunities. There are no excuses. There is little sympathy. Faced with wallowing in perceived reality or driving forward to a path in which he controlled his future, there was never a bit of hesitation.

> There still isn’t.

> So what if he was the poor son of a drunk, a statistic waiting to slip through the cracks of society? He studied so hard he got into the University of Alabama and walked onto the vaunted football program as a wide receiver.

This article by Mr. Wetzel is fantastic. I did not know Coach Swinny’s background before—but now that I do—I respect him even more.