Dabo Swinney: Foundation of program built on rock, lack of public accountability for officials, personal instincts

CLEMSON — Late Tuesday morning Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney again met with members of the media at his weekly news conference, this time ahead of the Tigers’ Saturday matchup with Florida State. The Tigers (3-5, 2-4) will host the Seminoles (4-4, 1-4) at 7 p.m.

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The following is an abbreviated transcript of Tuesday’s presser.

ALSO SEE: TUESDAY UPDATE: Separating fact from fiction + additional details on Elyjah Thurmon | There’s no more glossing over anything | Where Clemson recruiting foremost needs fixing | MONDAY INSIDER | The man behind the orange curtain | Times like these are the catalyst for the changes necessary | Clemson’s stunning collapse continues | Clemson’s verbal commitments | Clemson’s junior commitments

Opening Statements

“Good morning. Another tough opportunity this week with Florida State. Both teams are similar in a lot of ways. We’ve had some tough, hard-fought, losses. It’s a huge game for both teams. They’re a good team. They have a new defensive coordinator so they’re doing some different things on that side of the ball. But it’s typical Florida State … big, strong, athletic team. They’re multiple with their coverage.

“Offensively, they have the top offense in the country. They’re scoring 40 points a game. Gus Malzahn does a great job. I’ve gone against him many times. He’s very committed to running the ball. They’re eighth in the country in rushing the football. They’re a problem. No. 1 for them is a great player, a great competitor. I thought that when he was at Boston College. He’s a very good passer. He’s a creator. He can create explosives with his arm and patience and ability to scramble. They do a lot of motion, eye-candy, shots, reverses, screens, you name it. It’s hard to defend. A lot of double moves. We’ll have our hands full. We have to play a lot better defensively especially when it comes to having everyone on the same page.”

Question: What was Florida State able to do last week that allowed them to break through?

SWINNEY: “They just executed. They’re eighth in the country in rushing. They did a great job of executing on both sides of the ball. A couple of the explosives that Wake Forest hit got called back. Florida State just got control of the game early. They came off the open date and came out hot and fresh.”

Question: How have your defensive backs reacted in practice since Saturday?

SWINNEY: “Back to practice, everyone taking ownership and watching the tape. I don’t care what we do as long as we have 11 guys who know what we’re doing. I’ve been beaten many times but it’s frustrating when you don’t even give yourself a chance because you don’t execute. We have to get 11 guys on the same page. They’ve responded well. We all know the problems internally and what we did wrong. It’s now two games in a row. We’ve had some really big busts that create a lot of strain and frustration. When you’re on offense, you can still punt. On defense, it’s a touchdown and that’s a problem.”

Question: Is this a week to give some of your backup safeties a look?

SWINNEY: “Griffin played some last week. I think we played five safeties last week. We have the right guys but we have had some untimely mistakes. It’s not a lack of effort. We just have to get those guys better. It’s not just safety. It’s every single position.”

Question: Noah Dixon?

SWINNEY: “He’s getting better. He’s got a chance. He’s got a chance to be a good player here. He has missed a lot of time. He’s still not fully confident in everything yet.”

Question: Any additional thoughts on Elyjah Thurmon?

SWINNEY: “He’s got to have surgery. They were hoping he could come back but it kept slipping out. He can’t do what he needs to do. We didn’t want to hold him but it’s just where we are. We will be able to save his year, so he will be a redshirt sophomore next year.”

Question: Shoulder?

SWINNEY: “Yep.”

Question: You said huddling helped your offense Saturday. Can you elaborate?

SWINNEY: “We’ve talked a lot about that. We haven’t been playing with great tempo, so I felt like we needed a change in operation there. With the ability of the headset and not having to have any signals at all, unless you’re playing tempo, you open yourself up (sign stealing). I just felt like huddling gave us something different and not as much time to process the formations, plus zero signals.”

Question: What have you seen from Brayden Jacobs of late? Does he have a chance to be your starter at that guard spot going forward?

SWINNEY: “For sure. We’re not taking him out there of there. He’s one of the best five. He cares, too. I love that about him. That’s a big, grown, man. Tears when the game was over. It’s important to him. He’s a good player now but he’s going to be a great player. I don’t ever see him being a center, but he can be an elite tackle or guard. For him to be able to go in there and operate that way was great.”

Question: Is Tristan Smith improved some of late?

SWINNEY: “He’s done a good job five games in a row where he’s been steady for us. We need to be a bit more catch-and-run as opposed to catch-pause-and-run. There’s more there to clean up, but he’s a baller. Now his confidence has grown. He’s a skyscraper. He can make some plays for us. He’s a great kid. He was a captain for us Saturday.”

Question: How is Cade’s ankle?

SWINNEY: “It’s been good. He came out of the game in a good spot.

“Cade is a warrior, man. He’ll be that way forever. He did everything he could to play against SMU … treatment, hooked up to machines, everything. He loves to play and has no fear. When he makes mistakes, he comes right back. He’s really played well. He’s had three or four games in a row where he has played really well for us.”

Question: Is there any one or two players who spoke to your team after what happened Saturday?

SWINNEY: “Sure, but we’ll keep that in house. These guys care. Deeply. It hurts. We have a great group. A lot of good words but we have to go find a way to win. That’s where the fun is.”

Question: You said you were going to speak to some of your younger guys this week. Can you talk about those discussions?

SWINNEY: “Same thing. We’ll keep that in-house. This is a bad season, but this isn’t a bad tenure or whatever. We’ve had a lot of great moments. Sometimes people get mad when we talk about what we’ve done good around here. If I don’t talk about it, no one else will talk about it. All our kids get inundated with is garbage. It’s an opportunity to teach, lead and coach and create perspective and vision. You do all those things as a coach. Your conversation with your seniors is different. I was talking with T-Bone last night. He has won three championships. He has a different perspective than TJ Moore who’s doing a lot of great stuff but we’re not winning.”

Question: You think you’ll have a harder time next off-season convincing your fans that you will be able to turn it around?

SWINNEY: “I don’t have any control over that. 11 championships in 14 years. And we played for three more. If people don’t believe after all that, after one bad season, then … it stinks. I’m pissed, too. It’s my calling. I don’t blame people for being mad. I’m mad, too, but I’ll fix it. I know where I was 15 years ago. I was pretty miserable driving home from Charlotte. I had a lot of frustration and I had no track record at that point and honestly I was fortunate to get another year. I probably wouldn’t have gotten another year if not for Terry Don.

“I’ve probably gotten away from some of my instincts. Some people say I’m stubborn but I think I have conviction. I look back on that and when I got back home from Charlotte as a young coach hanging on by a thread and you’re not a popular hire anyway, no one would have believed I’d be here in 2025.

“I’m not immune. I don’t know any coach who hasn’t had a bad year. This isn’t a period. It’s a comma. 2010 was a part of our story. We lost five straight to the Gamecocks. That was awful. It was a part of our story. National championships are a part of our story, too. Someone has to talk about it. If I don’t, no one will. We’ve always been an outlier and a disruptor. We don’t have people talking about our league and our program 24/7. But we’ve won anyway. If people don’t believe after what they’ve seen, that’s fine. But I know what I believe and I know what we’ll do. I got no doubt. It’s just part of the story.

“Everything bad in my life, something great came from it. I’d say you’ve had some bad things in your life where good things have come from it. This is a bad thing professionally but something great will come from it. I got fired in 2000. That was my dream job. I’d probably still be there at Alabama. Know what came from that? I was miserable. 18 months I couldn’t get a job doing what I loved to do, but it gave me great perspective and I gained more confidence. I got back into coaching with more confidence because I was very successful at something else. Getting fired at Alabama brought me to Clemson.

“My wife and I had two miscarriages. It’s a devastating thing, but the Lord blessed us with three sons. We had a deeper appreciation for the miracle of being a parent and we were better parents because of it. That’s my perspective. I have peace no matter what. I’m not always happy. I’m not real happy right now because I take a lot of pride in Clemson. I haven’t gotten it done. It’s nobody’s fault but mine. I’ve sucked this year. In 17 years I think I’ve done a decent job.

“God never says oops. God never says my bad like we do. Something great will come from this. I don’t really know, but something great will come from it. We just have to go do it. Right now in the immediate we have to fight our butts off for these seniors for Clemson. I don’t care what records are, this is Clemson and Florida State. Let’s have some freaking pride and go battle and compete. It’s part of God’s plan. It’s a lot easier to fix it now than it was in 2010.”

Question: What do you mean by your core instincts and getting away from that?

SWINNEY: “I’m not going to get into that. One of my greatest strengths is my instincts, from a self-awareness standpoint. One of the reasons we’ve been successful here is I’ve always leaned on that. Sometimes you can listen to too much, too many people and you can get away from what you’re truly convicted with.

“I want to keep my eyes on the Lord, believe and don’t quit. That’s if things are going great or bad. Sometimes you can do your best and it’s just not good enough. This is a tough profession. Sometimes there are things out of your control. Just stay the course. Stay committed to the things you believe in. Don’t flinch.”

Question: Do you know what you need to change?

SWINNEY: “Yeah. Any time you come out of a game you reflect. You spend every moment postgame trying to reflect on what you have to do better and what went wrong and then you reset. I’m not wasting much time looking to next year. I’m locked in on Tuesday practice.”

Question: You haven’t ever fired a coach during the season since you got the job, correct? Is that a philosophy of yours?

SWINNEY: “I believe in that. Manny Diaz brought that up the other day. He was at Miami and talked about one of our meetings (ACC coaches) and we were talking about expansion of a playoff down the road. A lot of people were mad because some of the same teams were getting in. Whatever format there has been, we’ve had a seat, whether it’s four or 12. My message to the coaches was the more we expand the playoff, the more coaches will get fired. Manny reminded me of that the other day.

“We’ve created a system that isn’t sustainable and we’ve lost our way. We’ve lost our way. We’ve created an NFL model but the NFL is 32 teams with 16 spots. They’re designed to be 8-8. Half of the league is in. We have 136 teams fighting for 12 spots, so people are losing their jobs. It used to be about the season, the pageantry of your program, your rival games and now it’s all about the playoffs. And that’s fine if that’s what it’s going to be. How many coaches have won championships? Everybody acts like it’s so easy to do. Some of the best coaches to ever coach this game never won a championship or their league. Now it’s harder than it’s ever been. It’s just no feasible. It’s never going back, so maybe it’s a 48-team league with 24 spots. I don’t know. I said that and Manny reminded me of that.

“Now all of a sudden it’s about the playoff. Winning is hard. We’re being reminded of that this year at Clemson. Hopefully when we win again like I know we will, we’ll have a different perspective. Sometimes you can win so much that you lose appreciation for how hard it is. It’s freaking hard. We’ve won three in 130 years and we’ve won two in nine years.

“I don’t like firing coaches during the season. If you’ve got a bad person or some type of dynamic where you can’t be in the room together, that’s different. But we have great people here. We’ve got great men. Hey, we go play the games. That’s why you play. That’s what college football used to be about … the development, relationships. Not that it’s not there but coaches are getting fired for not making the playoff. Something has to give. If you fire the coach every year, you won’t have a program.

“This house is built on rock. We don’t have cracks in the foundation. Now, we have to be better. We’re not immune to having a bad year. They were getting ready to fire Bear Bryant in 1969.

“There’s just so much at stake and in this profession coaches get crucified and fined. Players get crucified and held to this unrealistic accountability standard. Refs have it, but it’s behind a curtain. They go home and drink a beer and the carnage is left. These refs, with what’s at stake now, need to be full time and there needs to be one leader and once voice. There should be public accountability. You can’t criticize them, but they’re in the arena. God forbid you pay a fine because you criticized a performance. Everybody else in the arena is criticized but not officials. People are losing jobs whether it’s assistants or players and they’re getting crucified on social media. There’s a system of accountability (for refs) but it’s behind a curtain. How dare we have accountability. Refs are people, too. It’s not just coaches and players. Refs are part of the game. They should be accountable and have to answer for it, not just behind some shadowy curtain.

“There’s flat out misses without any consequences. We’re allowed to turn in ten calls. I had 14 calls in one game earlier this year I wanted to turn in. Five of the 10 were wrong. We got back, ‘Yep, we missed it.’ These were game-changing calls. Obvious pass interference not called. We got, ‘This will be addressed with the crew and yada, yada, yada.’ Yeah, but there’s not public accountability. There needs to be a challenge opportunity and full-time officials. If you’re going to have these stakes, there needs to be consequences. Coaches and players shouldn’t have to be the only ones with accountability. I think I’ll get some pennies and mail them in a box.”

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Question: Ari Watford got arrested over the weekend. Any comment on that?

SWINNEY: “No. We’re aware of it and we’ll deal with it (internally).”

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