Dabo Swinney deep dives on bye week reflection: ‘My soul is cleansed’

No team needed their bye week more than Clemson did. That gave the Tigers a chance to reflect on what has happened to start their season, with Dabo Swinney realizing how much of this falls on him.

Speaking at his press conference on Tuesday, Swinney spoke on the soul-searching they’ve done the past week or so during their bye. He noted, with that, his soul has since been cleansed following the process.

“My soul is cleansed,” Swinney said with a smile. “Yeah, it was a lot of soul-searching.”

Coming in with title expectations, both in the conference and nationally, again, Clemson has already failed in those completely at 1-3 overall, with their lone win being a home upset avoided against Troy, and 0-2 to begin conference play in the ACC. They lost their opener to LSU but have since lost by three on a game-winning field goal on the road to Georgia Tech and then by thirteen to Syracuse.

With that kind of all-systems failure going on, Swinney said everything has been taken into consideration the last few days for the Tigers. That has resulted in the understanding that this, more than anything, is on Clemson’s coaching staff, starting with Swinney himself.

“Yeah, I mean, you look at everything. Obviously really disappointing in where we are, and I mean just, truly, you look at everything when things aren’t going well,” said Swinney. “The reality of it is it’s never too far away from one side or the other, you know. You’re not that far away from being on the right side of things. But, when you’re on the wrong side of things, everything stinks, right, and everything is magnified, and that’s kind of where we are. And, you know, nobody wants to hear, well, a couple plays here, a couple plays there. We are what we are.

“From a big-picture standpoint? I mean, it’s just been a coaching failure, honestly. I mean, that’s the best way I can say it. I mean, we have just failed as coaches. And I’m not taking accountability away from the players. I mean, they’ve got accountability in this too. You know, you’ve got some guys that have got to play better. They’re not just on scholarship anymore. I mean, some of these guys are paid a lot of money to perform. And, you know, everybody has got accountability. But, I mean, it’s just an absolute coaching failure. I don’t know another way to say it. And, I’m not pointing the finger. I’m pointing the thumb. I mean, it starts with me because I hire everybody and I empower everybody and equip everybody. And when players don’t play to their potential? To me, that’s coaches. That’s on us. Like, when you don’t – because our problems, really, are football stuff.”

To be clear, Swinney continues to fully believe in what they’re doing as a whole with Clemson’s program. But, with this team this specific year, he and his staff have already failed before October has even arrived.

“Big-picture, our program? Our program is great. Our program is built right. Our program has never been better. When you talk about a program? I mean, to me, it does two things. One, your program should drive consistency. And your program should – whatever your purpose is, your program should fulfill that. Everybody has their, you know, this is what we’re about. And so, as you holistically build a program, then does it get the job done?” Swinney said. “Well, obviously, we’ve had fourteen great years here in a row. We’ve had some bad moments, we’ve had some elite years but we’ve had fourteen great years – 13 of those were 10-plus win seasons…11 championships in 14 years. So, the program is driving consistency, you know. That’s what the program is doing. You know, that’s what it’s set up to do…The program is doing it’s part. It’s built right – organizationally, structurally, processes, procedures. Like, that stuff, we’re in a really good spot, probably never been better.

“But, from a team standpoint this year? Like, this is a football coaching failure. It’s what it is, and it’s football stuff. It’s not program. It’s football stuff.”

As he said, this eventually falls almost fully upon Swinney for how short the Tigers are likely underachieve based on their expectations going into this season. One of the few positives at this point, though, is Clemson can really only go up from here as far as how they can play over the final two-thirds of this fall.

“Your job as a coach is to get your guys to play to their potential, and we have failed at that. Just that simple. And so, that’s why we are where we are,” said Swinney. “We haven’t gotten it done as coaches and, again, that starts with me.

“All of that stuff, we can fix. So, the good news is we can coach and we can play our way out of it. But, we got to be better, you know, and that’s the frustrating thing