Dabo Swinney threatened to go coach somewhere else. Don’t threaten Clemson fans with a good time.
Syracuse win against Clemson no fluke. Orange stomped a hole in the Tigers.
Fran Brown coaches up Syracuse after bad start, while Clemson keeps getting worse.
Obscured in the smokescreen of Dabo Swinney’s petulant rant this week was the reality that Clemson’s coach presides over a football team that’s gone belly up by mid-September.
That’s as shocking as it is unacceptable, that a team with this much veteran talent keeps playing this poorly.
While Swinney shamelessly plays the victim card, Clemson fans have every right to be fuming mad. Swinney’s pathetic rant became the appetizer to another lousy performance.
Clemson just got routed 34-21 by an average Syracuse team, in a development that seemed unfathomable as recently as the summer, when Swinney predicted his team could go 16-0.
Never mind 16-0. The Tigers have 6-6 in their sights, and they’ve lost five of its last six games against Power Four competition.
Syracuse stomps hole in Clemson after Dabo Swinney’s rant
If Swinney had Billy Napier’s record or Sam Pittman’s buyout, he’d be a candidate for the hot seat. He’s not in that position, because he’s Clemson’s best coach in program history, and he’s too expensive to fire, anyway.
That supreme job security gave Swinney the comfort to dare the university to fire him.
“If they want me gone, if they’re tired of winning, they can send me on their way,” Swinney said days before losing to Syracuse.
“I mean, if Clemson’s tired of winning, they can send me on my way,” he reiterated, amid a rant that spanned several minutes, “but I’m gonna go somewhere else and coach.’
Don’t threaten Clemson fans with a good time. The thought of Swinney coaching someone else probably sounds mighty appealing right now.
With any luck, Swinney’s new team would be on Clemson’s schedule, and the Tigers could beat someone.
Clemson faithful aren’t tired of winning, but they’ve just about had their fill of woeful performances like this one. This was a beatdown, in every facet. Syracuse stomped a hole in Swinney’s Tigers on their home field.
This counts as Clemson’s ninth loss to an unranked team since 2021, but, go ahead, Dabo, tell us more about all those games you used to win.
Dabo Swinney goes from great coach to whiny underachiever
If Swinney wants to coach someone else, he should do it. He’d have suitors. If not, how about winning some ball games for the school that’s paying him more than $11 million this season?
Swinney, in his rant, offered a history lesson of his career achievements. It’s true, he’s been one of college football’s best coaches of this millennium. It’s true, he resurrected a sleepy program. It’s also true Clemson slipped from the elite stratosphere Swinney elevated it to and has fallen to also-ran status.
Even a coach with two national championships is open to criticism. Swinney claims he doesn’t allow criticism to affect him.
“That’s a gift I have,” he said, somehow getting those words out with a straight face.
Methinks that Dabo doth protest too much.
This is a guy who once let some fella named Tyler from Spartanburg get under his skin on a radio show. His pregame tantrum was straight from the thin-skinned playbook. Truly, a first-ballot rant bound for the fragile ego hall of fame.
Credit Fran Brown for doing what Swinney couldn’t and keeping his team afloat after a bad start to the season. Tennessee trounced Syracuse in the season opener. Then, Syracuse needed overtime to beat UConn. After that win, Brown had his players stay at the stadium and run wind sprints. His Orange got the message.
No wind sprints after this one. Brown celebrated a win against ‘one of the best teams in college football,’ filled with ‘so many (NFL) draft picks.’ Clemson likely will have several players drafted, but forget about this being one of college football’s best teams. That was the expectation, but here’s the reality: Syracuse played like a vastly superior squad.
Syracuse quarterback Steve Angeli looked like Steve Young while shredding Clemson, until he exited in the second half with an injury. The Orange dialed up several explosive plays, while Clemson’s offense remained stuck in neutral for too long under Cade Klubnik. Once a Heisman Trophy frontrunner, Klubnik has regressed in his senior season.
But, seriously, how did Clemson sink to these depths?
Nick Saban has thoughts on that. Coaches, even retired ones, are generally loath to criticize their contemporaries, but Saban offered some searing comments about Swinney’s fall from glory on “College GameDay.”
“The game has changed. You need to change with it,” Saban said, specifically referencing that Swinney must re-evaluate his NIL strategy or his transfer-averse approach to roster building, lest he fall further behind.
And still, Clemson’s bad start to the season cannot be pinned entirely to Swinney’s old-school approach in a new era. More than enough talent exists on Swinney’s roster to be better than 1-3.
Nobody’s buying Swinney’s martyrdom. This is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business. Lately, Swinney’s a whiny, overpaid underachiever who didn’t come close to beating Syracuse.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.