Dabo Swinney impressed by leadership within team after 1-3 start

Clemson has opened the season with an extremely disappointing 1-3 record. Despite that, head coach Dabo Swinney remains impressed by the team’s leadership.

The Tigers entered the season as the perennial favorites to repeat as ACC Champions and punch their tickets back to the College Football Playoff, but that just hasn’t been the case. They opened the year with a 17-10 loss to No. 9 LSU before bouncing back with a 27-16 win over Troy. Now heading into its Week 6 clash against Bill Belichick and North Carolina, Clemson has dropped back-to-back games to Georgia Tech and Syracuse.

“I wouldn’t say anyone has surprised me, but I have been very impressed by some of these guys,” Swinney said. “We have what we call ‘The Council’ and man, if y’all could hear these guys articulate. There’s no cameras and they’re not worried about someone putting something on social media and everyone taking click bait and creating whatever that world does. I told the staff, in fact, I held it up because I get ‘The Council’ notes, but I’m like, ‘this is what gives me hope in my future.”

Swinney applauds the leadership from the young people in his program

“When you have young people like this who can think like these guys and process like these guys and can articulate like these guys in the midst of a really bad situation in our world, man it makes you have hope for the future,” Swinney continued. “We’ve got some amazing young men that they’re just wired really well and they can think. We should just publish ‘The Council’ notes.

“I wouldn’t do that, and nobody would want to write it anyway. Everybody wants something negative and I’m sure someone will take something I said today and make it a negative article. But man we’ve got some great kids.”

Swinney, who is now 181-50 in his 18 seasons with the program, is certainly capable of turning this negative start to the season into a positive. The two-time National Champion and his team are looking at a schedule that includes clashes with seven unranked opponents in their final eight games. It may be too late to make a run to the College Football Playoff unless it could go 6-2 in ACC play and somehow squeak into the ACC Championship Game, but you certainly can’t put it past the 22-time ACC Champions.

The Tigers look to start that journey back to relevancy this Saturday against North Carolina. Kickoff is scheduled for 12:00 p.m. ET on ESPN.