Dabo Swinney addresses his comments towards Clemson fans

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney addressed his recent comments about bandwagon Clemson fans during his Tuesday presser.

It’s been a struggle for Clemson this year, sporting a 4-2 record going into the bye week. This isn’t the national title-type Clemson Tigers you’re used to, which is why Swinney suggested they lighten the bandwagon along the way.

But the coach was asked for a follow up about his comments over the weekend.

“Our fans are awesome,” Swinney said. “I mean, 98.5% of our fans are amazing. This is my 21st year so I mean, literally 98.5% are amazing, but we got one and a half percent that they’re with you when you win … 

“I don’t even know who I was talking, trying to pep him up a little bit and you know, a little adversity in this world is sometimes good. You know, because, for a couple of reasons, I think sometimes you can win so much you lose appreciation for the blessing. That’s just a reality. And it’s hard to win. It’s freaking hard to win. And to win consistently is almost impossible.”

Swinney doubled down on the difficulty of winning and if that couldn’t convince a certain small population of fans, well, there was nothing he could do.

“So if people don’t understand that, I can’t help them,” Swinney said. “But I just made the comment of, you know, a little adversity along the way, you hate it, but the one positive is it makes you grow. But you also learn kind of who’s with you. And that’s a good thing. That’s good. I love our fans. I think we got, again, 98.5% of them are amazing. But the other one and a half percent they create a lot of the problems.”

Clemson has been in position to win every game this season, but turnovers proved to be costly in losses to Duke and Florida State.

After being hopeful that this would be the year Clemson would return to the College Football Playoff, a portion of the fan base was extremely disappointed after a 2-2 start. Fans voiced displeasure on social media, radio shows and message boards.

So when Swinney caught wind of more criticism towards the program than usual, his bandwagon comments went viral.

“We’re at a point in our time, and I hate that, where, you know, people, if you don’t go undefeated, you’re losers. You’re terrible,” Swinney said. “And it’s just such a terrible mindset, you know. And honestly, maybe we need to lose a few games and lighten up the bandwagon. Sometimes the bandwagon can get a little too full.”

Clemson is back in action this weekend when the Tigers hit the road to take on Miami.