Clemson coach Dabo Swinney is facing scrutiny after a recent loss to Duke brought the team’s record to five losses.
Despite past success, including two national titles, Swinney’s tenure at Clemson is now seen as potentially nearing its end.
You see a coach losing it on the sideline, berating players in an ugly, under-performing season of distress.
I see a coach who should’ve left Clemson two years ago.
“This is a low of lows,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said after last weekend’s loss to Duke.
And it should’ve never come to this.
Think about baseball for a moment in a football-crazy world. The best hitters read the ball out of the pitcher’s hand, recognizing spin and seeing curveball just in time to adjust.
Swinney didn’t recognize curveball when he should’ve. Didn’t pack it up at Clemson, call it a fantastic career at a place he loves — and run home as fast as that private Crimson Tide jet could’ve taken him to Alabama.
Now his undoing at Clemson is playing out for all to see.
These things never end well for coaches who’ve spent a career at one school, unless your name is Nick Saban or Tom Osborne. Because every other coach who has tried to go beyond the horizon line at a job they made great, has eventually faded away from losing or shame. Or both.
Swinney had the perfect out two years ago when Saban decided he didn’t want any part of where college football was headed, and left the behemoth he built. Swinney could’ve simply said what Bear Bryant said all those decades ago when he left the monster he built at Texas A&M for Alabama.
Momma called.
But instead of recognizing the clear signs, Swinney doubled down on the process, the culture, he built at Clemson. He embraced the life he carefully and dutifully orchestrated, on and off the field, at a university he desperately loves.
He thought, like all coaches do, he could flip a switch and recruit the right players and find the groove again. Shoot, he’d even embrace the transfer portal if that meant righting the ship.
So he did, and it didn’t. Sometimes, these things just run out of gas on their own volition. What worked for years doesn’t anymore.
Top five recruiting classes become Top 10 or 15 or 25, and hitting on three straight rare quarterback recruits (Tajh Boyd, DeShaun Watson, Trevor Lawrence) becomes missing on three straight five-star quarterback recruits (DJ Uiagalelei, Cade Klubnik, Christopher Vizzina).
The next thing you know, you’re losing to Duke at home and laying into your defense on the sideline, you have five losses and this season looks a whole lot like when you first started this ride — and thought you were going to get fired.
Worse, those same players you were barking at during the game look like they don’t give a flip. They’ve tuned you out.
You have to see curveball, everyone.
Jimbo Fisher, Lincoln Riley and Brian Kelly were vilified by their respective fan bases because they saw curveball, and got out of dodge. Fisher left Florida State, Riley left Oklahoma and Kelly left Notre Dame.
Think about that for a moment. The coaches at Florida State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame — three of the biggest, baddest blue-blood brands in the sport — walked away from the jobs because it was time.
Huge, guaranteed contracts weren’t the reason. Money helped ease the decision, but the die was cast long before the Brinks truck arrived.
All three of those mega-brand schools would’ve paid their respective coaches whatever they wanted to stay. None of the three even allowed their schools to bid.
Two of the three (Fisher, Kelly) failed spectacularly, and got massive buyouts. Riley went into this season needing to win big to save his job, and has the Trojans moving toward a possible College Football Playoff bid — if they can win out against Northwestern, Iowa, Oregon and UCLA.
If not, it’s just another disappointing season at USC, and one step closer to Riley leaving before he’s pushed out. Because that’s where we are with the elite of coaching in college football.
To whom much is given, much is required. Translation: if we’re paying big bucks, we’re not waiting for answers.
James Franklin found out the hard way this fall, taking Penn State to within one play of reaching the 2024 national championship game. Six games into this season he was fired and given $50 million in go away money.
The same Franklin who four years ago had the USC job. All he had to do was see curveball.
He had built a consistent winner at Penn State, and genuinely believed he was a few players away from winning it all. He grew up in Langhorne, Pa., just outside of Philly, and loved Penn State from the day he picked up a football.
No chance he was leaving. He saw fastball the whole way.
Then that jug handle curveball broke from two to seven on the face of a clock, and time was up. There was Franklin, bat on his shoulder sitting on ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’ set assuring everyone he still wanted to coach.
After the loss to Duke, after Clemson had reached five losses for the first time since 2009, the coach who had brought the program unprecedented success and two national titles, was at a loss for words while Clemson athletic director Graham Neff watched in back of the room.
“I may get fired today,” Swinney said, half-joking — or maybe he wasn’t. “Can’t say I’d blame him.”
Swinney saw fastball all the way two years ago when he could’ve had the Alabama job.
Now he’s another curveball away from the whole thing imploding.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
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