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Dabo Swinney Admired Nick Saban’s Ability to Adapt and Change – Yet He Won’t

Dabo Swinney’s refusal to use the transfer portal is his hill to die on, unlike mentor Nick Saban

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Sep 4
Sep 4

By Rock Westfall

The Clemson Tigers football program led by head coach Dabo Swinney is getting more absurd by the day. As the 2024 Transfer Portal closed, Clemson ended up with ZERO gains. No other program could make such a statement outside of the service academies. And in the defense of service academies, taking in transfers is virtually impossible for them. But for a power brand like Clemson, that should not be the case. Yet it is.

Swinney claims to have tried for portal gains, but in an appearance on ACC PM, he said, “It wasn’t really necessarily an intentional thing. There were a couple of guys we looked at, but they gotta love you too.”

Swinney continued the conversation with quite a creative reach: “Honestly, every player is technically a transfer. We just signed a whole class of guys transferring from high school.”

Swinney then went on to boast about Clemson’s impressive graduation rates and that its players stay in the program longer compared to other schools. 

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The Irony of Ironies – Dabo Fails to Apply the Lessons of His Hero

With the arrival of summer reading season, college football fans would be wise to add Dabo’s World: The Life and Career of Coach Swinney and the Rise of Clemson Football by Lars Anderson to their libraries. Not only is the book an entertaining page-turner, but it also reveals who Dabo Swinney is: a true believer in the original ideals of college football. In the book, it is discovered that Swinney formed a bond with Nick Saban. The two evolved into fellow confessors and would vacation together with their wives.

When discussing the GOAT, Swinney consistently said that he admired Saban’s ability to successfully adapt and change to the current circumstances of the sport. What is astounding is that Swinney refuses to do so himself.

Swinney grew up with a hard life in a broken family with an alcoholic father who could be abusive. He often had to share a bed with his mother and was a walk-on at Alabama as he worked his way through school. Those hard times shaped his coaching philosophy.

To Swinney, college football was his escape ticket to a better life. He truly believes in how the sport builds a young man’s character and how it can set up disadvantaged youth with opportunities to better themselves that they otherwise never would have had. Swinney eventually earned a scholarship because of his relentless work ethic and started in the 1992-93 National Championship Game when Alabama crushed Miami.

Those experiences are seared into Swinney’s soul and help explain his rock-ribbed convictions. Ironically, in another Lars Anderson book, Chasing the Bear: How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest College Football Program of All Time, Saban’s tough upbringing is detailed as well.

Saban, like Swinney, used college football for his climb from hardscrabble beginnings and worked for everything he got. Yet, he was aggressively willing to adapt in a way that Swinney has not. 

A Hill to Die On Against a Blitz of Reality 

Following six consecutive appearances in the College Football Playoff and final Top four rankings each of those years, Clemson has missed the CFP in the most recent three campaigns while finishing outside the Top 10. This pattern warns of how Swinney failed to keep up with the times and adapt to the realities of today’s college football.

Swinney always hated the thought of players getting paid, believing that quality education and brotherhood for life were most important. He partners with his current players when recruiting to ensure Clemson gets “Our Kinda Guys” on the roster. All of Dabo Swinney’s convictions are honorable and to be admired. But Clemson is not on a sustainable path if it wants to remain a national championship contender.

The time has come for college football fans to accept that Dabo Swinney is a Clemson Tiger who will never change his stripes. He is college football’s ultimate true believer.

Dabo Swinney has chosen his values as the hill for his career to die on. While that is something to admire, it is also a decision that will likely keep Clemson out of the running for national glory. The good old days aren’t coming back—just ask Nick Saban.

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