Clemson coach Dabo Swinney to join ACC Network as guest analyst for championship game

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is staying busy during a week off for his Tigers. According to Awful Announcing, Swinney will join the ACC Network as a guest analyst for the ACC Championship game between Duke and Virginia.

Specifically, Swinney will appear on ACC Huddle’s two-hour pregame show. Swinney will join Taylor Tannebaum, Eric Mac Lain and Eddie Royal on the show, which starts at 6 p.m. ET on Saturday. The game begins at 8 p.m. ET.

Swinney should be able to provide plenty of insight on Virginia head coach Tony Elliot. Elliot coached under Swinney at Clemson from 2011-21 in a variety of roles. Most notably, Elliot was Clemson’s offensive coordinator in his final two seasons with the program.

In 2022, Elliot took over at Virginia. Elliot had a slow start to his tenure with the Cavaliers. Virginia posted a combined six wins through Elliot’s first two seasons, and just five wins in his third year.

Alas, Elliot and Co. broke through this season, posting a 10-2 overall record and a 7-1 mark in conference play. Virginia’s two losses in the regular season were against NC State and Wake Forest. The Cavaliers defeated Duke 34-17 on Nov. 15.

Now, the Blue Devils will look to strike for revenge. Though Duke head coach Manny Diaz never coached under Swinney, the pair should be familiar. Diaz was Miami’s head coach from 2019-21 and is 1-0 against Clemson since taking the reins at Duke.

Swinney isn’t used to watching the conference championship from anywhere other than the sideline. The Tigers have won six of the last eight ACC title games. Nonetheless, following their 7-5 record this season, Clemson didn’t make the cut.

In fairness, Clemson finished its regular season on a high note, winning its final four games. After the Tigers’ 28-14 win over in-state rival South Carolina, Dabo Swinney raved about his team’s resiliency.

“I love just the effort of our guys, the belief of our guys,” Swinney said. “Now, we put ourselves in position to get to the postseason and try to get an eighth win. That’s not what we set out to do. But there’s only two other teams that have had eight wins 15 years in a row, and that’s Alabama and Georgia.

“So, that’s quite a turnaround. In fact, this is the greatest turnaround team in Clemson history. There’s 30 teams that started 1-3 or worse. We were only the fourth to get to six. Nobody got to seven.”