Ever since listening to Dabo’s press conference today his words have been bouncing around in my head. He said “Hey, listen, if Clemson’s tired of winning, they can send me on my way, but I’m going to go somewhere else and coach.” I do not know how other Clemon fans received this, but this did not sit well with me. Not because he is wrong. This is objectively the most sustained success that Clemson has had during its history. Clemson has done a lot of winning since he became the head coach. These
are things that I will not, and cannot, dispute. Dabo has also made claims in the last few years that the Clemson fan base is not appreciating the success of the program. He implies we have become entitled. Dabo is not wrong about this either. Dabo would have you believe that he should be above criticism because of the success that Clemson has had while he has been at the helm.
Dabo has taken Clemson from a consistently 8-4 program under Tommy Bowden and turned them into a 10-2 football team. The he leveled the program up again by winning the ACC championship from 2015-2022 and bringing home 2 national championships. Dabo declared in the infamous “Tyler from Spartanburg” rant that only two teams have done that: Georgia and Alabama. I agree that the standard may not be winning the national championship every year, but to say that the last few years have lived up to a reasonable standard of the Clemson program would be a difficult argument to make. Especially for a coach earning as much as Dabo.
Dabo is one of the highest paid coaches in college football. He will make $11.5 million in 2025. I am not trying to reach into Dabo’s pocket. He has earned the contract that he was given, however, athletics is a “what have you done for me lately” business. Dabo knows or should know this. Coaches that make as much as Dabo do not survive if they do not live up to the contract. Ask Jimbo Fischer, who can now be seen on the ACC Network. He was paid handsomely to be the head coach at Texas A&M and was quickly exited once they realized he was not worth the price tag (even though he had an exorbitant buy-out).
Dabo has certainly earned grace from the AD and fan base due to his past success. He has already used up some portion of that grace in the last few years due to the lack of relative success of the program. Clemson has not won a playoff game since 2019.
Swinney asked: “What’s so bad about our program? What’s so bad about it? 14 years of 9 wins. How many programs would sign up for that?
Josh Pate (video below) calls this a “classic gaslighting” technique. Nobody is suggesting the program wasn’t highly successful under Coach Swinney in the past or that the floor has remained relatively high even in recent year.
Coach Swinney asked: “Why are we held to a different standard than all these other teams out there that haven’t won nothing.”
The answer is obvious. Aside from the money, location, support, and history of Clemson football, the reason there is a different standard at Clemson than say Wake Forest, Boston College, Virginia, Maryland, or Rutgers is precisely because the Tigers have won so much.
Conversely, imagine any of Clemson’s contemporaries in the position Clemson finds itself today. Ohio State’s Ryan Day just won the national championship. If the Buckeyes win 3/6 Big Ten titles and go 0-2 in the playoff over the next six seasons, would he be on the hot seat? That’s not even to mention how much more impressive a Big Ten title is compared to the ACC. Marcus Freeman’s Notre Dame team just played for a National Title — exactly what Clemson did the year prior to their playoff winless streak began in 2020. If Notre Dame goes six years without a playoff win, would he be on the hot seat?
It is way too early for hot seat talk to be discussed and frankly it wasn’t being discussed until Coach Swinney implied fans wanted to send him on his way. Clemson could still manage to go 9-3 and find their way into the playoff like they did last season. It sure doesn’t look like it though, and if they indeed fail to win the ACC or make the playoff, it will be a pretty poor six season playoff winless streak. How long can that streak get before he does in fact belong on the hot seat?
