← Josh Pate's College Football Show
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Public Investing Advertiser
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- [01:07]
Dabo Swinney
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- [02:52]
Interviewer
First off, this is big. This is big. We, we've hunted it for a while. White whale devil, Stoney with us. White whale, yeah. Right. But I wanted to come over here because you don't get on the Internet. I've been on the Internet, so I've heard some rumblings, I've seen some headlines. Looks really negative, so I had to just come and hear it from you. What's the reality here right now?
- [03:11]
Dabo Swinney
Oh, man, you ain't getting nothing but positive. For me, that's just, that's just who I am, you know. But it's awesome. I mean, I feel like I've, I've made the big time. Like, like, literally. And congratulations to you. I mean, what you've been able to accomplish and just kind of betting on yourself, pretty cool. You know, I didn't know who you were and then all of a sudden you're like, you're everywhere. It'd be, you're a sports guy, it'd be impossible to not know who you are. So, you know, awesome. And I didn't know if you'd ever, I don't know if, I don't know if you've ever called. So he said, hey, Josh, the bald guy. Yes. Yeah, we want to meet with him. Absolutely, let's meet with him. And so, so, you know, glad to have you at Clemson. But you know, it's, man, it's fun. It's always fun. I'm a passionate guy about what I do, who I do it with and where I do it and just happens to be here in Clemson and you know, it's a, it's just a journey, you know, just enjoying the journey. It's all good. Everything's good. And so people who know me, they know I'm, I'm a half full guy all the time and that's kind of how I choose to live my life. I think it's a choice.
- [04:24]
Interviewer
Yeah, I think that perception, if you're a fan, not even a Clemson fan, let's just say you're a college football fan, you view a season from the outside, the only thing you have to frame it against is whatever your expectation was.
- [04:36]
Dabo Swinney
Yeah, yeah.
- [04:36]
Interviewer
So like if I expect the Clemson to play for a national title and then they win seven games, well, I don't really hear from you for a long time. Like the season's over and I know he's down there doing something, but I
- [04:47]
Dabo Swinney
don't know what he's down there doing.
- [04:48]
Interviewer
And so you may get this thought in your Mind that. Oh, man, I bet they're, I bet they're really dwelling on that down there.
- [04:54]
Dabo Swinney
And then we come in here and
- [04:55]
Interviewer
it's, it's like someone pulls the string on one of those windup dolls, and then it's energy, energy, energy, energy, energy. And I, I, that's not normal. Obviously. It's not the average way of living. And so I would love for you to talk about how you sustain that. It's easy to sustain it in the good times, but when you get a negative outcome.
- [05:14]
Dabo Swinney
Yeah.
- [05:15]
Interviewer
How you sustain that, make sure your entire building and organization does.
- [05:18]
Dabo Swinney
Well, I mean, I just look at, I mean, life is a journey. It's not, it's not of destination. It's. I mean, we've won national championships. You wake up the next day and you go, all right, well, we've got to go back to work. Like, it's got to be more than that. And so if you don't really love. If you don't really love what it takes, if you don't love the doing, if you don't love the journey of it, you know, you're probably not going to last, you know, because when you do achieve something great, what else is there to do? And I think I always talk a lot about competitive stamina, you know, and I think, and that's, And I love studying people that have been really, really good at something for a long period of time. And if you study any of those people, it's, it's, it's. There's always some moments along their journey where, oh, that wasn't good. But you, you have to, you have to love it all. You got to love it all. And I mean, that's biblical. I mean. And so I guess it's hard for me to answer a question like that without, like, bringing my faith in, you know, Romans 8:28 says, all things work together for good, for those who love the Lord. All things. That's the bad stuff, the good stuff. You can't just love the good stuff. And quite honestly, just my life, I mean, we're all shaped. I'm sure you've been shaped by your life. You've been shaped by your experiences. I mean, I'm 56. I've lived a lot of life. I've, I've had a lot of really, really bad, bad, dark days. And I've had some really bright, sunny days. But as I look at things, I look at it from a perspective of faith. And so God never says, oops. That's how I've always looked at it. Jeremiah 29:11. And I know God's got plans. There are plans for good. They're not plans for disaster. They're plans that give you a future and a hope. So if there's hope in the future, there's always power in the present to be. To push you through whatever you're dealing with in the moment. But I think, you know, for me, I just try to have fundamentals to life. I just, I keep my eyes on the Lord and everything I do, good times and the bad times, I believe I have a. I have a strong belief in myself and then I don't quit, never have. That's kind of my fundamentals to life. And I apply those to whatever situation is, you have a great year, you have a great situation, everything went perfect. Keep your eyes on the Lord. And that's great, all right. But life is its peaks and valleys. It is. And honestly, it's more that none of us are built for the mountaintop, right? We're all built for the climb, we're all built for the journey. But I love studying people that have done things because there's a competitive stamina to that. If you look at the Tom Brady's, you look at the Michael Jordans, the Kobe Bryant's, the Steph Currys, you look at a lot of the great coaches, the Nick Saban's, you know, just people who've been really, really consistent. And it's not that they haven't had bad moments along the way, but they love doing what it takes. And it's like, oh, we won, that's great. Well, can we win again? And you love the process of doing that. And that's, that's just how I'm wired. And I mean, I'm not a rookie, I guess, is the other thing I would say. I mean, I'm not a, I'm not a wet behind the ears rookie. I'm a, I'm a thick skinned, calloused up dude that's been through a lot of life. And man, yeah, last year was a really frustrating and tough season for us, but it was just a chapter. I mean, it was, it was a chapter in a great book. We're writing a great book. This is the greatest era in the history of Clemson football, and honestly one of the greatest eras in the history of college football these past 17 years. But last year was a bad chapter. We wrote it. You know, and that's what I tell our players all the time. It's not about what people predict. It's not about if it was about that we'd have won the national championship last year. It's about what we do. What we do is a reflection of how we think. It's a reflection of our habits. And then sometimes, you know, you can do everything right and it doesn't go your way. You know, that's life, too. And I think as a person of faith, like, you know, if everything did go our way all the time and we never lost and we never had any adversity, we'd have no reason to depend on God. All right? But adversity is a part of life. It's a part of winning. Failure is a part of success. It just is. And last year, in life, in our world, we didn't get it done, and we. We did. We definitely underachieved. And that's. That's my responsibility. We didn't perform, coach or play to our potential, and that's the head coach's responsibility. But it's football stuff. It's football stuff that we got to get fixed, and we got to get better. And you always. You start over every year, whether you went 15 and oh or you won seven, guess what? It's a new team, it's a new journey, new challenge. Nothing carries over. And that's how I've always looked at it. And you go back to work, and I love that part of it. I love that process. So, yeah, you learn from it, you grow from it. You flush it. You know, boy, that chapter, no good. Turn the page, new chapter, and we got the pen in our hand. Always have. And when it's all said and done again, it's not about what people predict, it's about what we do. And ultimately, that's what gets written is what we did, what we earned. And, you know, you. We from going on 18 years now, 17 years track record. You know, we've. We're. We're writing a great book, but, you know, last year was a tough chapter for us, and we will try to write a better one this year.
- [11:05]
Interviewer
I know you had to make some staff moves at the end of the year. Offensive coordinator was the one that got the headlines. Think maybe a secondary coach. You. So you made some staff moves, and I know you don't do that nearly as often. There's not nearly as much churn here, roster or coaching staff as there is most of the country. So, I mean, you get to the end of the year, you do your assessment, you realize those moves are needed. What goes into that process? And like, what was it you saw that didn't quite match up with what I want us to be.
- [11:33]
Dabo Swinney
Yeah, well, I didn't have to, but, but it was the right thing to do. And I think again, that's a part of the evaluation process every year. It's not like somebody said, you got to do this. It just as my job as I evaluate, you know, everything. I felt like change was needed and that's, that's hard. I mean, that's never easy because I love, I love my people. I love, you know, and, but, you know, we don't always get it right or it just doesn't work for whatever reason. And sometimes you have to make a change and, you know, but that's part of my job. That's part of my job. And we haven't, we've not had a lot of turnover here, you know, especially with people just packing up and leaving. It's a really special place. But the bottom line, you know, as you sit back and you evaluate your season and you look at it and you're like, golly, man, we, we, I mean, we lost three games by 11 points. We lost two games on the last play of the game. We were, we weren't bad. We were horrible in running the football with some efficiency. We were horrible on third down. And you know, and it's not that we didn't work hard at it. It's not. I mean, we, I mean, you look back and you're like, man, we in my, we did everything right. I mean our team was, was, was. We had great leadership. These guys did the things right. You look back and you evaluate stuff. But I think we were affected early on. Like, I mean, we, we, we lost the opener 17 to 10, had the lead at halftime, didn't get it done when the second game would go to, go to Atlanta and we lose on a 55 yard field goal with two seconds. And now all of a sudden this, you know, there's a lot of noise in our world and you got young people and expect. And we've made everything in college football about the playoff. Now it's like everything is about the playoff. And so now you're one and two with, with, you know, a three point loss and a 1710 loss. It's two good teams and, and now you're pretty much your, your season that was, is over. We didn't handle that well. I mean, I don't, I mean we didn't even show up the first half of the Syracuse game. And, and so we just, that, that, that affected us. You know, the, the, the disappointment early, the noise, all those type of things, but, you know, you don't make a decision in a moment. I like to let things marinate a little bit. Let's get through the season. But when you look back at it, you know, we didn't win the close games. We had two games that we had lead in the fourth quarter, we didn't finish. So you look up and you get the results that you earn. So now, well, what do we need to do to get better? And you look at your personnel, you look at your staff, you look at everything. And I now do that every year, whether we want seven or one. I've always done that. So that process is never different. But I just felt like that, you know, I had. I needed to get back to some things that I really believe in, and we got to run the ball better, and you got to be more productive on third down at a place like Clemson. And, you know, we didn't. We didn't do that. And then on the flip side, defensively, it's. It's the worst past defense I've had since I've been a head coach, you know, Tom Allen's first year. So there were some personnel things that we needed to get better and we needed to address. We did that, made some changes within the staff as well. You know, we. We. We gave up a kick return. You know, Duke was the last. We lost on the last play of the game. That. That game, there was also a kick return. We gave up for a touchdown, went and hired Rich Versace and probably the best special teams coordinator in the NFL. So the timing was right for that to work out. So, you know, made the changes that I felt like we needed to make within our staff. And then we had a bunch of guys, you know, John Gross got the head job at Samford, so it created a lot of kind of, you know, open spots in the outfield, if you will, to kind of fill some. Some. Some roles. So we got a bunch of new people that have come in, and it's been fun. And then again, personnel, we've got some guys that are able to come in and really fill a gap right away. We signed a. We think a really good class that fits what we're looking for from a profile standpoint. And so good. Spring did a lot of work. We got a quarterback battle going on, and, you know, we came out of spring with a little bit of clarity there. It's been fun bringing Chad Morris back. He was, you know, ironically, you and I were talking about this off air, but in 2010, we won six games. My second year. And so you were asking me kind of like, I mean like it feels, it feels very much like 2010 to me or spring of 11 if you will because we won the championship my first year, won the division, went to the championship, got beat by Georgia Tech, but there was a lot of excitement because we won our bowl game. Kyle Parker, who could have gone, he was first round draft pick in baseball. He says I'm coming back to play quarterback. We had Andre Ellington and Jamie Harper and Duane Allen and we had Chris Hairston, we had some in the line. We had Byron Maxwell, Daquan Bowers, Jarvis Jenkins, Marcus Gilchrist. I mean we had a good team and really good defense that year especially but we had a tough year and we won six games and again I wasn't a real popular hire at the time and now I just won six games in year two and it was a lot of disappointment because we were, we way underachieved and five games, six points or less. We competed, lost in overtime in Auburn, lost on a bomb of a kick at Florida State at the end of the game. But it was a tough year. So that spring made some changes that year, kind of tweaked some things very similar but ironically brought chad Morrison in 2011 for really the same reasons. We really aligned and were very like minded. I thought he was a great fit for me at the time I really believed that and it proved to be the case. We had four great years together before he went on to be the head coach and now here we are. Fast forward to spring of 26 and we're coming off our second worst season in 17 years and the timing was right and so bringing him back, I thought he really fit what I think we need to do to get back on track offensively. And then Tom Allen, man, Tom's great and he's going into year two and we got better in pretty much every area defensively but we were horrible in pass defense and a lot of that was you know, bus communication, some, you know, some, some personnel things we needed to address as well. And so that's what we went to work on doing this spring and, and now we get a chance to, to you know, attack and try to climb the mountain all over again.
- [18:34]
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Dabo Swinney
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- [21:37]
Interviewer
One of the things I've always appreciated about you is I'll sit there from a distance, I'll watch you over in Nashville. You'll win a bunch of. You'll lose occasionally, but there's a lot of noise always even from your own fan base sometimes about what they wish you'd do differently or I wish you'd change this, I wish it changed that. And one thing, I think I've said it a million times on our show is independent of my position on it, the one thing I know about that guy's principles and values defined, they are not going to bend. Does not matter if it's 99 people out of 100 in the room that want him to bend, he's the 100. He's not going to bend them. That doesn't always happen elsewhere. And there are examples sometimes recent history in this sport maybe of places that chased, you know, more the sugar high effect in a temporary sense. They achieved really, really high highs. Then it's really, really low lows. And yeah, it's so easy to sit there and watch that from the outside. But when you're running a program,
- [22:35]
Dabo Swinney
what
- [22:35]
Interviewer
is it like to maybe be pressured to chase some of those 100 mile an hour down a dead end road approaches and to, you know, have the discernment, have the wisdom, you're a little bit older now to say we're not doing that guys. I know it didn't go the way we wanted it to, but we're gonna, we're gonna keep doing it this way.
- [22:51]
Dabo Swinney
Yeah, I think it's important to be true to yourself. Like I had this job for three weeks. If you come to my office, I've got a little.
- [23:00]
Interviewer
It's a museum.
- [23:02]
Dabo Swinney
Yeah, I got a little note card right by my phone. I had had the job for three weeks. I got like the full time job December 1st of 08. And so, you know, I've been a head coach for a few weeks as an interim, but now I got the job and I go do my like first head coach deal. It was the back in those days the coaches would come and speak at the Shrine bowl and I'll never Forget it. So I'm walking into the Shrine bowl and there's all the head coaches. It's like North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Georgia, everybody's there. And, and I see Bill Curry and he's the head coach at Georgia State. And so I was, I played at Alabama. I was only with Coach Curry for just over a year and then he left and went to Kentucky. Gene Stallings came in and then I was with him for his whole seven year career there playing and coaching for him. But I must remember, like walking toward the table and you know, I'm 38. Whenever I'm, I'm just like. But you know, it's just like an official, like, you gotta go do this. And I'm like, I don't even know if Bill Curry even remembers me. You know, I was still walk on that year with him. And I remember sitting down and he was. And he, if, you know Bill Curry, he's one of the, he's just, he's very smart and he's a very kind man, stern. And I remember sitting down and I'm like, hey, Coach Curry. And I was starting to tell him I'm Davos Sweeney. And he goes, he's like, davos, sit down. You know, and then we sat down for a second, he goes, and we were kind of right next to each other on the little podium thing. And I had my little speech in my little four note cards or whatever in my coat pocket, and I had one extra card in there with nothing on it, just in case you need to, you know, write something down last minute. And he goes, he goes, listen to me, first of all, congratulations, man. I'm so proud of you. He said, I've just watched your journey, you know, and he said, listen, you didn't call me for any advice. He goes, but I'm going to tell you three things and then I'm going to shut up and we're going to enjoy this banquet. And I went, I'm like, well, hang on, you know, I'm like scrambling in my thing and I pull out my note cards and I got that one card with nothing on it, and I wrote the date. And he said, number one, three things. He said, number one, it's, it's right in there by my spin there, right by my. Right on my desk, my entire coaching career. He said, listen to me, and I need you to listen to me. He said, so many people get these jobs and then they try to be something that they're not. You know, I got to do it the way that guy does it. I got to do it way. That guy. He said, he said, be dabo. He said, that's what's made you successful at Alabama. That's what got you this job. Just by being you. He said, so be who you are. And he said, that's what got you this job. That's what's going to keep you this job. I wrote, number one, be Dabba. And he said, the second thing, he goes, and I want you to hear me on this. And these are my greatest regrets. He said, there is no job worth sacrificing your family. All right? And I, at that time, young kids. And he said, my greatest regret, he said, I thought I had to do every booster thing, every speaking engagement, every church, everything, you know, he goes, and I had a hard time saying no. And I missed this game. I missed that practice. And he said, he said, because in the end, that's what you got is your family. This guy's a head coach at Georgia Tech, Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia State. He started the program there. And, And I really, as a young father at the time, and I wrote it down. No job is worth sacrificing your family. And so to me, that's like, man, I've got to create a life for, not just me, for my staff, that we can be highly successful without sacrificing being great husbands, great fathers. And it was important to me. And then the third thing, and he was dead on this, he said, now, the last thing I will tell you, he said, you've never made any money. And I had, I mean, I made 100 and something. Thousand dollars or whatever was the most I ever made. And he goes, you've never made any money. You're going to make some money now. And he goes, this is a very volatile job. And he said, so make sure you get a good money manager. And you make sure that, that you. You plan, like to not be coaching forever. Anything, it could, it could change next year. And I think, you know, he'd probably been reading the media reports about, you know, he probably saw I was a D plus hire by espn, whoever, you know, and so, and, and my, you know, my contract, they could have. They could have fired me for a steak dinner at Halls and. Or Rick Irwins or something. They could have, you know, sent me on my way. So. But that was great advice. And so I wrote those three things down. And so, you know, that's the biggest answer I can give you is I don't know how to be anybody but me. And I have conviction in what I believe and I have conviction in what I think is best for the 30 year old version of these players. And that's what matters most to me. I want to win as much as anybody, but what motivates me and drives me is how we win. Because when it's all said and done, it's you and you and you better be able to, you know, have peace with you and you and listen, if my career ended today, I have peace. You know, we have served this community. We have man, we've had great moments and memories and made Clemson better. But most importantly man, we've impacted lives. We've had 430 seniors and 424 graduates. We need the nation in graduation. And I know that's not a man that's like uncool to talk about the value of an education now, but not to me, not to me. And that's never going to change for me that my. We have a responsibility as coaches to serve these players hearts. Yes, there's a transaction and there's all this stuff that, that's all fine but these are young people, these are young people who need to be equipped as men that are eventually going to be 28 year olds, 29 year olds, 30 year olds and eventually they're going to look back and they're going to think differently at 30, like we all do and they're going to look back on the people that were in their life in the process and they're going to go, man, where were the adults? Where were the people that told me the truth? And at the end of the day, man, I want to be a guy in all my players life that they could say, man, he was genuine, he was authentic, he was tough on me, but he loved me and he cared, all right. And that's just how I go about it. So I don't know how to be anything other than me. And I know there's a lot of people out there that want me. You know, it's a fascinating thing to me. Like they go, they want me to be something like this and it's like, well, like well what's that guy done? You know, because to me it's not just about win. I mean like, I mean again, it's about how we went, it's about our purpose, it's about how we win. And by serving their heart, not their talent, equipping them as men, I want them to have some fun. I want every, every signing class I've had 17 years has won a championship. Everyone except for last year's Freshman, you know, Braden Jacobs, Gideon Davidson, those guys are on the clock. They got three more. Every signing class. And prior to our tenure here, Clemson hadn't won the ACC in 20 years. So now every kid that signed with Clemson for 17 years, they've won a championship. Every coordinator that I've ever had has won a championship. Billy Napier, my first oc, when we won our first division championship. Every coordinator except for Tom Allen, he's on the clock. He was a rookie last year. We've had seven quarterbacks win championships here. You know, something's driving that. It's. It's not just like something we've done once and this has come up many times over the years. Like I've just never been willing to compromise what's best for the long term health of our organization and our program or for the 30 year old version of this kid, for what's best in the moment. I've just never been willing to do that. And I've always told our staff, you guys want to stay employed long term or y' all want to be short term. And let me tell you, I've been, I've had a front row seat going on 18 years. I've seen a lot of people that were really hot in a moment and you can't find them two years later. I got a long list of those people and I've never really wanted to be that. I want to be consistent and we are far from perfect, but there's very few programs that have been more consistent than us in 17 years. And so, you know, a lot of times people want me to be like, well, they. And I'm like, well, because it's, it's all about the playoffs now. Well, we've been to seven play. Who's been to more playoffs as a head coach? Who's been to seven playoffs? I don't know if there is another one. I think I've been to more playoffs than any coach in College. There's 138 coaches and they'll say, okay, well we're going to measure you by championships. Well, we got to let us just. Well, let's do that then. Well, we've won 11 championships in the last 15 years. 11 including. And then they say, well, that was last decade. And I'm thankful that I can speak in decades. Like last decade we finished second in wins in the decade to Alabama this decade we're in the year seven, not like year two. And we, and listen, man, it's a fact. We've had, we've lost games, we should have won. I think we've underachieved. I've done a poor job, especially last year in some areas and bringing out the best in everything, man, kind of getting it to work the way it needs to. We've had some bad stretches, that's a fact. But it's also a fact that there's 17 teams in this league. We've won this league three times this decade. 20, 22, 24. We've been in the playoffs twice. We've had four out of six seasons, 10 plus wins, five out of the six, nine plus wins. Nobody else in this league can say that. Nobody's won this league more than one time this decade. Nobody's been to the playoff more than once this decade except Clemson. And even this decade we're, as a program, we're third in championships. Georgia's had five, I think Alabama's had four. Combination of coach Saban and we've had three. And so we're not perfect. But my point is, like, why do I want to be like them? Like, what's that guy done? Okay, he did something. Well, can you do it over and over and over and over and over again? Check back in a decade, you know, and if you look back, if you go back and watch, we won 10 games in 2011. And it was, it was like you'd have thought we, I mean, it was like, oh my God, 20 years. And now like, I mean, we've had. I said, well, let's just see if we can put our head down. Let's see if we can do this a few times before we start. Ready to have parade around here for 10 win season. This should be what we do, you know, maybe not every year, but we should be really. Well, we've done that. I mean, we've had 13 out of the last 15 years, 10 plus wins. You look at some of these great programs around there, that's more than they've had in their whole history of their school. But again, so people want me to be like all these other people. I don't know how to be like them. You know, I just got to be me. And being me, as Bill Curry said, is what got me here. And that's what's kept me here. And so sometimes when I've made mistakes, I've gone against my instincts and that's kind of my own self about it. And honestly, some of the best decisions I've made or some of the, or I would say the most popular decisions I've made have been some of my worst decisions. And A lot of my really, really unpopular decisions have been my best ones. And so that's kind of an odd thing. But so at the end of the day, you know, I have to make the decisions that I think are best for the long term. And it doesn't always, it's not always going to make sense if you, if you, the one way to fail is you try to please everybody. If you try to please everybody in this job, you have zero chance. Zero chance. And then whatever you decide, you just have to understand in this role, there's going to be a lot of criticism and a lot of hate and all that, and it just comes with it. And so you got to have conviction and leadership is a very. Sometimes you got to stand alone, sometimes it's, you're in alignment with everybody, but a lot of times you're not. And so, you know, and at Clemson, the advantage that I had with this job, because if I was here, I wouldn't have, probably wouldn't have got the job I got. I was a walk on player who earned a scholarship. I was a walk on because I was an interim that went four and two. That Terry Don Phillips said, you know what, let's give this guy a chance. And I've been an interim ever since. I'm still an interim. You know, we all are interims, but I'm on my 18th year as an interim. And that's one of the things Terry Don told me early on. He said, look, trust your instincts. And he said, you know, and he trusted me and he empowered me because a lot of the things that I did was kind of countercultural. But he really supported me in line with that. And it wasn't perfect. I mean, you go back, everybody forgets we won six games in 10. We lost five in a row to our rival. We had some tough stretches along the way, but we've been consistent. But it's how we've won is what I'm most proud of. We lead the nation in graduation, we lead the nation in retention. And, you know, so, you know, everybody, you know, like this. And then, you know, the portal, I mean, we've gone through Covid, we've gone through Portal, we've gone through the nil, we've gone through no rules. Like, I mean, it's been a lot that we've managed. But even with all of that, this decade, somehow we're still top 10 in wins, top 7, top 5 in championships. As a head coach, I lead the nation in draft picks, the nation. Me and Kirby are the only two coaches 138 coaches that have 20 plus first rounders. So. But we have. We've never had a top recruiting class. So, you know, I know people want me to be like other people, but. But, you know, all I can be is be me. And, and, and then they say, well, you know, Coach Sweeney, don't change. Coach Sweeney, don't do that. And that. I mean, you can't keep a job for 18 years if you don't change and grow and adapt. That's just. That doesn't even make sense. That's like, what is that, like an oxymoron? Like, it don't even make sense. So we've always had to change, We've always had to grow. We've always had new problems to solve. And I love that. I love being a problem solver. And I think if you're a leader, you have to embrace that. But I love my players. That's what ultimately it comes down to, and that's what drives everything, is my love for the player, my passion for the game, and my love of Clemson. You know, this is a really special place. But what helped me early on as the interim was I had been here for five and a half years and I really understood Clemson. And if there's one thing I know, I know it's. I know Clemson.
- [38:32]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [38:33]
Dabo Swinney
And so, you know, we've never. If we. And I said that when I got hired at my very first board meeting, I went in there and I. This. One of our board members says, you know, we want to be like this school and this school and this school. We want to be great academically and athletically and. And it was like a moment of truth for me. You know, this is like the first board meeting. I'm 38 years old. I walk in there, you know, I don't. I don't even know them, and I'm like. And you know, it's like, just keep your mouth shut, smile and leave. And then the other one was like, oh, hell no, man. Well, no, that ain't who we are. Well, that voice won out, which sometimes can get me in trouble from time to time. And that voice won out and I'm like, you know what, sir, I don't want to disrespect you, but that's not my vision as your head coach. Like, I want for those programs to want to be like Clemson, and here's how we're going to do that. I want to build a model program. I want to be great academically and athletically too, but I want to do it this way and this is going to be the Clemson way. And that's what I felt like we had to do. I think there's two ways to be successful. You can do what everybody else does or you can be unique and different. And we've been unique and we've been different in everything we do. It's unique and it's become our brand, honestly. And so, and it's and it'll. I think that's what continues to drive our success. If we try to be like some of these big brand schools, we're not going to be successful. We have to be Clemson. I got to be me. We gotta be Clemson. And we've always won and we'll continue to win. We'll write a new chapter this year.
- [40:10]
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- [42:43]
Dabo Swinney
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- [43:29]
Interviewer
I remember when things started to evolve with Nil with the Portal. I remember hearing someone say, and they weren't wrong about this, hey, the players are about to make a lot more money. They need to understand they're about to be treated like professional athletes a lot more. Which kind of sucks a lot of the soul out of college football. A lot of the spirit out of college football. I've heard you talk about this. I feel like you and I are perfectly aligned on our vision that it's not a bad thing that guys can make money. It's not a bad thing that guys even have the freedom to do this or do that. But it does not feel like there are a lot of people who had their hands on the wheel who are thinking about what you said about the 30 year old, 35 year old, 40 year old version of those players. Because it's really just an ends to a financial means for a lot of people right now. And I look, I know that maybe there'll be cynics who listen to you or listen to me talk like that because I deal with them too in this vein. And they'll say, you don't care about those kids either, man. You're just trying to have a different point of view. Well, I love college football. I've loved it my whole life. And I love, you know, when I can look at a 45 year old guy, number one, who's well off and his family's well off, but also he belongs to a community like he belongs to a place. And we talked to Kirby yesterday about this, but I've talked to you about it as well, about how there is coming very, very soon a group of 28 to 38 to 48 year old people, young people, adults at that point, who really don't have that root system. They never got the full development as a player, but also development as a person. And they may have made a few hundred thousand dollars that they've long since burned through. And you're just sitting there at 29 years old and you're asking, yeah, what did college do for that person? Because college football in my whole life has done a whole lot for a lot of people. And I just wonder, and I know, I know you've talked about this, I know you go five hours on it about what that group of people, the documentary, if you will, that those people are going to sit there on camera and talk about if they could go back, they'd do this, if they could go back and do that. But in the moment, you got a bunch of people that are handling the situation.
- [45:36]
Dabo Swinney
Yeah, it's, that moment's coming. I mean it is there, there, there will be a reckoning. And I, hopefully we're heading into a better situation where we can maybe have some order and have some rules and nobody's wanting to not these guys, not have a more modern situation where they can make money. That's not the case. But we have to stay scholastic. We have to educate our young people. You know, football is not a game of longevity. It's just not, you know, and everybody talks about data is 78% of NFL players are bankrupt within two years.
- [46:15]
Interviewer
Those are the ones who make it to the NFL.
- [46:16]
Dabo Swinney
Yeah, that makes it 2% make it to the NFL and then 78% of the guys within two years of being done are bankrupt. That's a real, that's data. Like that's not make believe. We're, and these are mid 20s to 30 year olds. We're not going to Get a different result with an 18 year old, 19 year old, 20 year old who's never been away from home in their life. And, and you know, the adults have left the room and, and it's, it's, you know, it's frustrating and I've voiced things and I get just you know, crucified, you know, for speaking what I believe. I've raised three boys. I've been one, I've been in college football. I'm not some just random casual person. I mean, I mean, listen, I slept on the floor as a senior in high school. I mean, my mom and dad were married at 18 years old. My dad was an appliance man. My mom cut hair and worked at the mall. My parents were divorced. We had addiction in our home. I know what it feels like to have nothing. Nothing. I went to, I chased my dream as the first one to go off to college with a Pell Grant and a student loan. And the reason I did that is because I had a counselor tell me what a Pell Grant was. And I go to Alabama to chase my dream and I'm like, yeah, I can do this. Sure. I can go play at Alabama. Absolutely. And then I got there and I'm like, oh man. Boy, I got a lot to learn. But I learned how to take what I had and become the best I could be. I learned that you could outwork people, you can outthink people, you can outlast people, you can out tough people. I learned through my education that, man, I have a lot of, I'm going to have a great life because man, I know if I equip myself, I'm going to be able to have a better path than anybody in my family. I'm the first college graduate in my entire family ever, baby. Three boys. Mom, dad, parents, grandparents, great grandparents, Great, great grandparents, like forever. And that's why I'm passionate about education. That shaped me, all right. And so I go there and I get my degree. But I went to college at 18 in 1988 and I've been in college my whole life. Like I'm not a casual person. I was a walk on, earned a scholarship, lettered three years, won a national championship. Coach Stallings says you're going to be a GA. Got my MBA, G8 for three years. Then at 26, he says, you're my full time tight end. I was probably the youngest coach in the SEC at that time, coaching the receivers and the tight ends for Gene Stalls. And then eventually that ended and I came to Clemson in 03 and I'm going on my 24th year here. I've been a walk on. I've been a scholarship player, I've been a ga. I've been an assistant, I've been an assistant head coach, I've been a head coach, I've done it all. But I also was in Alabama from age 18 to 31. And that shaped me because, you know, most, who gets to do that, like most people, you go to college and you get on with your life in a few years. And I, I saw a lot of my teammates that the band played loud for and the crowd roared for. And then, you know, all of a sudden at 28, they were struggling. You know, some of them went to the NFL and they spent their money or they didn't get their degrees or whatever. And I was shaped by that. And I always said, man, if I'm a head coach, here's how I want to do it. I didn't know if I'd ever be a head coach. And now we've got this situation where like if you were an adult, we all think differently at 30 than we did at 18. And I've said this many times, there's a reason why these insurance companies, they make a lot of money. There's a reason why what you pay for a 16 year old to drive a car is different than a 25 year old. Because data says, and yet we have just created this system where there's no order, there's no means. Like sometimes as adults, as parents, you'll be a parent one day. Like there's certain things that you do as a parent because you have wisdom, you have wisdom. And we've created this system to where if we try to apply wisdom as adults, it's where you're this terrible human being. And my whole thing is if I could wave at one, we could do it so much better. We could do it so much better to serve the 25 year old version of this kid that would come and hug our neck as opposed to the 18 year old who's never lived away from home before and now that 19 year old who's probably making the most money that he's ever going to make in his life and how are we equipping him, you know, and again, it could be so much better if we really wanted, if we really wanted to do it right. And I said this, you know, I mean, hey, pay them all 100 grand. Like who can't live well off 100 grand as a college student and your scholarships paid for and then you can still have the rev share and the nil and all that stuff. But that money goes into a, like a compound earning annuity type thing. 401k. Obviously you'd have to have all kind of legislation for stuff like that. But they can't get it. They can't get it until they either graduate or they turn 25. So now you've incentivized education which we need to educate our young people. All right, because if you're playing football at 25, you're old, like there ain't many, you're in a very, it's a very small group and I just think we could do it better, I really do. And these kids that now they think they're wired differently, they're fully developed as to like if you do an estate, you don't, you don't leave all your, if you got this estate, you don't leave everything to your 13 year old kid. You know, we don't let 13 year olds just jump in Ferraris and drive down the road. We got walls, but yet we have no rules in our world right now. And we're just throwing all this money at these kids and they're, they're trying to be. There's, you know, you got expectations, enormous. You have expectations, you have people pulling at them. We have nothing to protect them from themselves, from families, agents, we don't, we don't have any like anything in place like that. It's just whatever. And for some it's going to be just fine. And that's what the stories are. Usually it's for all those people that it's the good stories. But the reckoning is coming. There will be a voice from this era of kid that's going to have that 30 for 31 day. And you know, he was making $2 million as a 19 year old. You know, he's not training like he needs to, he's not doing what he needs to do. He gets beat out, so he transfers, then he gets hurt. Now he owes me a bunch of tax money. And because you best believe this government, they like, they, they want their money. And now he's working, you know, a job that's. And they're like, how'd you get here? And now that 28 year old version who's struggling, he's going to be like, man, if I could go back. But you can't go back.
- [53:19]
Interviewer
No.
- [53:20]
Dabo Swinney
And, and we've created this system where like I said, the adults have just kind of left the room and we just, we just, we just locked all the kids upstairs in a room with a bunch of knives and fireworks and matches and gasoline and nothing to see there. Everything's going to go great and we just focus on the, you know, where. And for some it will be just fine. But for a lot of these kids, you know, we've made it to where it gets hard, you take off and so you're going to have a bunch of that and you're going to have kids with no degrees and they've spent the money and it's just, it's just, and then guess what? Mental health and all that comes with that, which is already a crisis in our country. So. But all I, you know, for me, all I can do is, man, focus. My focus is inside out, like my, I just stay in my lane, man. My focus is like, how can we, how can we make sure that we do everything that we can, that our guys are not an example. They're the example. They're the example. We just had 16 guys go to the NFL, 15 have their degree, two of them were true juniors. TJ Parker and Peter woods got their degree in three years. They're all champions, they all won a couple conference titles and, and I mean like they all were Clemson their whole career. Like there's a, there's a, there's a, what we have here is unique. There is a heart and a soul at Clemson and it's, and it's, it's unique. But for me, that's my focus is, is how can we, yes, we want to win. Nobody's more competitive than me. You know, you don't, you don't accomplish what I've accomplished in my life, you know, in, in 5am Mat drills for months just to get a chance to be on the team, to walking on and being a, I mean like you know, two weeks of full pads, camp every practice and being a tackling dummy to, to continuing to go and to earn a scholarship, to play, into becoming a coach, to becoming a head coach, to still being a head coach as a D&hire 18 years later. I think we've done okay. I think we've done okay. That doesn't happen if you're not competitive, if you don't want to win. But what drives me is how we win. That's what drives me. And people don't understand that. I, I, I'm sorry, you know, but I'm not here to please other people. I'm here to please the 30 year old version of my player.
- [55:49]
Interviewer
Well, here's the, that's what matters. So, so I could go on any street corner and find people in your part of the business, my part of the business, who would yell, oh, things are messed up right now. No one really thinks things are great right now, per se, but there's.
- [56:06]
Dabo Swinney
Well, nobody does. And if. And if they think everything's great, they're just. They're just. They're just posturing, you know, because they're afraid they're going to be criticized or. Or something like that. And I don't. I don't care about that.
- [56:20]
Interviewer
But so. But my point was, a lot of them stop short of doing what you just talked about. So, like, this is where my appreciation comes in. So you control what happens at Clemson, largely. You're in charge of this place. You could theoretically look at the way things are and say, I don't like it, but, oh, well, since it's that way, I'm going to traffic in it. You could push kids out of the door, but you don't. So it's just an example. And my point to people who may not be familiar with your practices here, that's actually rubber meeting rope. That's actually someone talking about the problems, but also doing whatever part you can do to actually be a little part of the solution. And it may, in the end, interim, mean I don't have spots on my roster to sign a big class. I can't really even go into the portal because where would I put the guys? But also, that portal strategy, that recruiting philosophy, a lot of it's just really pinwheeling around what you're talking about to begin with, which is, well, I could go in the portal and get guys, but do they fit what we do here? Do they fit what we're looking for here? And that's why seven wins, 12 wins. Like, whatever the case may be, I always got to look at that result and set it to the side and ask myself, all right, if I love college football and this is this guy's approach, do I not have to respect that? My answer is yes. I don't know what everyone else's answer is, but my answer is always yes. So, like, I've got an appreciation for that part of it, almost independent of the result, which I know is hard for normal fans to say.
- [57:47]
Dabo Swinney
Yeah. I mean, and listen, it's football. It's hard to win. It's just at the end of the day, it's football. It ain't like we get lined up and get beat by four touchdowns every week. I mean, we. We had a tough year last year, but it's football and typically watch the NFL. Every, every game in the NFL, most weeks, it comes down to the fourth quarter and a few plays. And last. And you look up now, there's 50 say, oh, well, you know, this is going to go. And that's football game. The game of football is a few plays that make a difference. And it's that way every single. It's incredibly competitive. It's incredibly competitive. You know, but from my perspective, whether you won 12 or you win seven, you know what, you stay true to who you are, you know what your core values are. You're always trying to get better. You attack the problems from the inside out. And yeah, I mean, people, you know, like last year, I mean, like we had 16 guys go to the NFL. Nine drafted seven for it. We didn't have a portal problem. You know, I didn't get it done as a coach because my players didn't play to their potential and we didn't win the close games. And I think that's where I have to make the difference. We got to win the close game. We got to finish in the fourth quarter. We didn't do it. And then you know what else? Nobody ever wants to give the opponent credit. How about. How about they got good players, too? How about they got good coaches? I mean, it's just, It's. It's just crazy to me that, you know, we're held to a standard, that if we're not in the playoff or the national championship, that, you know, it's our way doesn't work anymore. What do you. What are you talking about? We. In this era, Covid and I, we. We've won this league three times. 20, 22, 24. Maybe this is the year we're back where every other year seems like now. Maybe we're back on track this year, but I know it's working. We haven't been quite as consistent. We're top seven in wins this decade. You know, that's with seven wins this past year. So you just are always. But you, you do this long enough. You do this long enough. Show me a coach that's been a head coach for 18 years. He's had 18 years of 10 plus wins. Show me one. Never ever. I mean, like, that don't exist. It don't matter who it is. You name any coach out there. Bear Bryant to whoever. Like, you can have. You do it long enough. You can have.
- [60:03]
Interviewer
But.
- [60:03]
Dabo Swinney
But can you. Can you. Can you get back going? And if you're just judged by one season and again, that's Our world, you're only as good as your last game or whatever. And I get all that, but. But I'm not affected by that. I'm more like, like, let's keep our perspective on, okay, you got to have self awareness. You got to be real on what the problems are. And then you attack them and then you go again and you know, but negativity doesn't, it doesn't help anything. And we have so many reasons to be positive and so many reasons to believe here, but, you know, how we do it is, is, you know, what's kind of our North Star.
- [60:43]
Interviewer
All right, I'll get you out of here on this, the 2026 version. You just came out of spring ball. You're in the middle of May as we're recording right now. What were your thoughts coming out of spring? What are some of those, like red sharpie circle focal points that'll ultimately determine what this group does this year?
- [60:59]
Dabo Swinney
Well, we got to be better offense. As simple as that. I mean, we have to run the ball. We don't have to. I mean, we don't have to lead the nation in rushing, but we've got to, we got to have a pulse. We got to be efficient. We have to have a complimentary system that, that, you know, we run the ball effectively and everything comes off of that. Your play action, your RPOs, your screen game. Like everything is. It's a complimentary system that is built in the trenches and we have to run the ball and be committed to that and, and attack the one on ones that come and get presented to you when you can, when you can run the ball effectively. So it starts with that on offense and then defensively, we, we've got to, we don't have to go from 120. We don't. We can't go from 120th to 110th. But I mean, and we don't have to go to top 10. But if, if we can drastically improve our past defense and we're going to, we're going to be much better. So, you know, those are the big things from like last year to this year. But from a team standpoint, you know, it's. It's about our quarterback. It's always about the quarterback. And you know, we believe in Vezina. I think this is a kid that has, you know, I think he's got a chance to be a really good player. He's only started one game and he did his part to win that game. He threw for 300 something yards and he gave us a chance in that game and got better as the game went bright lights. And I like how he responded and I like how he's competed, but he's the most experienced guy we got. And then we got this kid, Tate Reynolds, who, who, you know, we kind of had a battle of four guys to see who's going to come out to be the two so that he could go compete with CV and, and he, he dominated that. So now we got this kid, Tate Reynolds, who's big time talent and now we're coming out with some clarity and we got two really good players that are going to go compete and either way we're going to get better. CB holds his tent off and he's earned it. Tate beats him out then because CB ain't gonna back up. So either way we get better there. But I think, I think, you know, for us we just gotta, we just gotta be, you know, again who we are. I think we're gonna be really electric with our skill. I think this is as good a receiver group in totality from an experience standpoint like Wes Go is a dude. TJ Moore is a dude. Tyler Brown is a dude. Cole Turner's Will Do. We signed three really high level freshmen that hopefully we can blend in and grow them up. So I think that's a great thing. I like our backs, I love our tight ends. I like what we got in the trenches. You know, I think we've got a bunch of nobodies that really nobody really knows a lot about. Maybe not kind of the star power names. Although we got a guy like Will Held who's probably going to be a first rounder. We got Sammy Brown, we got Jaheim, Walter Dawson, we got Amari Adams, we got Marcus Strong, we got Berberia, we got, we got some good players. We got Ashton Hampton, probably another first rounder at corner. We got our kicker back, we got our punter back and we got a, we got a bunch of guys back that are coming off of the, the pain that comes from last season. And you know, when you go through stuff together, you usually grow stronger from it. And so we have a lot of guys that went through a really painful season together. And you know what, just like us in our life and things that we've been through, they're stronger because of it. And then we've brought some guys in that I think are really good fits and good compliments and I think some can help us immediately. Some will fill different roles for us, some will help us more in the future. But I think at the end of the day, we got to be able to run the ball, and we've got to be able to, you know, have a pulse and pass defense, which we didn't. We didn't do that last year. And if we get those two things right, we're going to line up because we, we, we. We. It's a miracle. We've won seven games, to be honest with you. As bad as we were running the ball in third down and as poor as we were in past defense, the fact that we won seven games and lost three others by a total of 11 points, I mean, it's a miracle, to be honest with you. But I also think last year was a perfect example of our culture, because you never really. That's another good thing about going through some adversity, because you don't really ever know. Like, you think you know. You think it's built right. You think you know who everybody is, but you don't really know till you. Till you get challenged, till you go through some real adversity. And, you know, we're sitting there. Last year, like, we had to reevaluate. I mean, we had to reset. Winning season ain't a goal here. Like that ain't a goal. And we've had 15 winning seasons in a row, and there's only three Power Four teams that can say that, by the way, so it ain't. It ain't. That's not like an easy thing to do. But we're sitting there three and five, and you got Florida State, got to go to Louisville, who beat us, got to go to South Carolina, who beat us, and got a ton of disappointment. All right, well, who are we? And. And all of a sudden, for. And for me, a lot of growth for me, too, because I had to. I had to coach in a way. I hadn't. I hadn't coached in a long time. Long time since I've had to, you know, coach like that. And so, you know, that was a blessing. And to be in the. In the pit with these guys and to see them go win four in a row and secure our 15th winning season in a row, which, again, that wasn't our goal, but all of a sudden, it became the goal, because most places, it would have gotten worse. Yeah. But you saw our culture, you saw our foundation, you saw the heart of our kids. You saw the fight, and that was an awesome thing to be a part of. And, you know, we earned what we got. That chapter's written. That story's forever there. Just like that. Fifteen of those Stories forever there. Just like that six win story's forever there. This is a new story. This is a new chapter. And we got a group of people in here that, man, we ain't got no fear, we have no doubt. I don't know if we'll win the championship this year or not, but it won't be for a lack of trying. But I do know this. We will win again. We will win another championship. We'll win multiple. We're going to. This is Clemson, man. This is Clemson and this place is way bigger than me. They'll be winning long after I'm gone. Because Clemson is built to last. We're not built for a moment, we're not built for a season. We're built to last. And that, that's one of the unique qualities about this place. I mean, and it's just, just last night I spoke at an event up in Rock Hill and I know I didn't even. There. I'm sitting up on the stage and I look up and I'm like, man, there's Jonathan Meeks. This was my first commit. My dad. I signed 12 guys were brave enough to come play for me and sign with me in February of 09. I call them the 12 disciples, the dandy dozen. Like, all 12 of those guys were doing great things in life. And I looked up and there's Jonathan Meeks who came in here and then played five years in the NFL. My first guy got him out of Hargrave that said, I'll come play for you. And this guy's a graduate, he's a father, he's a businessman, he's a husband, he's all these things. And here he is in this crowd in Rock Hill, South Carolina, coming to see his coach and he's probably, oh, no, heck, I guess he's like 34 or 5 or something like that now. And you know, that hug from him, like, that's what this is all about. That's what it's all about. That relationship, that love. And you know, it's a hard job and listen, there's a big old scoreboard and I get it. But it's how we win. That's what drives me. And man, we're going to win. We're going to continue to win. And I don't, I don't have any predictions of like, we're going to go undefeated. Hey, all I know is we got a team that's salty. We got a team that's got some thick skin, a little calloused up, a little bit we got a team that believes in each other. We got tough schedule. You know, scheduling matters too. You know, we don't. We don't get to line up and play east to Bogo Community College the first couple of games. Like, like we're going to Baton Rouge. They're pretty good too, you know, and if they win, does that mean we're terrible? You know, we don't want to give other people credit. If we win, does that mean they're terrible? No. How about it's a big time game early and then you go on to the next one. You just take them one at a time. Just like I take one season at a time, Just one season at a time. And, you know, one of these days, you know, it'll be my last season one of these days. You know, I've been an interim coach for 18 years, but, man, I just feel like I'm just getting going. I feel like I'm just now becoming the type of head coach that I need to be. And I feel like I'm just now becoming the best version of myself. And, you know, so a lot of problems, a lot of challenges, but, man, I love attacking them and, and can't wait to see. I know this. I know God's good all the time, and, man, God has never, ever. I have failed many times, but God has never failed me. And I'm just going to continue to keep my eyes on him and let him order my steps. Let him speak to my heart and trust those instincts and just know that, hey, it's all good. It's all good. You got to. Life is short, man. I got a good friend of mine who just died. He's stage four cancer. He's in chemo right now in Birmingham. I mean, he's 54 years old and it's just like, man, life is short. Life is short. None of us are proud, so, I mean, you better enjoy the journey. And, man, I didn't get into coaching to make money. I got into coach because I love what I do. And that has not changed. There's all kind of challenges, all kind of things that, you know, you got to sort through. But at the end of the day, I love the game, I love the player and again, and I love Clemson. And I'm thankful for, you know, all the opportunities that I've had over the years and look forward to many more. Thankful for the opportunity to be with you, man.
- [71:25]
Interviewer
Thank you. Yeah.
- [71:26]
Dabo Swinney
Appreciate it.
- [71:40]
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- [73:35]
Dabo Swinney
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Podcast Host
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