Dabo Swinney believes portion of Clemson fan base has lost perspective

On3 imageby:Matt Connolly02/02/23

MattConnollyOn3

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney took a break from talking about new Tigers offensive coordinator Garrett Riley during Wednesday’s press conference to answer a question about if Clemson fans have lost perspective.

As Swinney pointed out, Clemson has won at least 10 games for 12 consecutive years and has won two of the past seven national titles.

Still, there’s a portion of the fan base that is unhappy about the past two seasons, which ended with Clemson missing the College Football Playoff.

Swinney’s answer lasted more than six minutes and included more than 1,000 words. It came after Swinney brought up the topic during the Clemson Signing Day special show on Clemson Plus Wednesday morning.

Here’s the full question and answer exchange between Swinney and a reporter:

Clemson reporter: “Coach, watching your slideshow presentation this morning and talking about, you know, never wanting expectations to exceed your appreciation, do you feel like a large part of the fanbase needed kind of a realignment of that perspective?”

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney: “Yea. I mean I don’t pay attention to all of that stuff, but you know it’s there, right? And then especially when you’ve got all kinds of stuff coming at you from different sides. I mean, we’ve won three national championships in 127 years. The problem is we’ve won two in seven, so sometimes that can create a loss of perspective. And I think when you lose perspective, you lose your joy. I think that’s what’s made Clemson unique and special, is this place has always had a lot of fun.

And you guys that have been around here back in February of ’11, when we signed that class and we had that Signing Day, if I would’ve said to all of y’all, coming off of six wins right there, ‘Hey, here’s what’s fixin’ to happen the next 12 years… I know we haven’t won 11 games in 31 years, but we’re gonna go do it eight times in 11 years. I know we haven’t won 10 games in 20 years, but we’re fixin’ to do it 12 years in a row. I know we haven’t won a national championship since 1981, but we’re gonna go to six final 4s, we’re going to win two national championships and come within an onside kick of winning another one, and 12 years in a row we’re going to win a postseason game. Nobody’s ever done that in college football. Oh, and by the way, we’re going to graduate 98 percent of our guys. And we’re going to have 13 top 15 recruiting classes in a row.’

Y’all would’ve all looked at me like I was crazy, you know. And the Clemson fan would’ve said, ‘Hey, well sign me up for that.’ And it’s not that we’ve been perfect every year, and we’re never going to be perfect every year. But man, we’ve had a lot of joy in the journey. And I think when you lose perspective of that and how hard it is. …

Again, when we won the ACC championship up there in Charlotte in ’11, there were 5,000 people at the West End Zone. It was unbelievable. Couldn’t even get off the bus – 5,000 people. Now, there ain’t nobody there. Now it ain’t no big deal. And I think that’s sad.

I get it. I spent 13 years at Alabama. I know. And I’ve always wanted to make sure that I kept the right perspective, that I stayed focused on my purpose, that this stays a purpose-driven program. That we don’t lose focus on our why. That we don’t ever lose joy in our journey. Because that’s part of my responsibility as I lead a group of people. A lot of people in these walls here.

It’s been an incredible journey. And God doesn’t give us that, right? He doesn’t just say, ‘Here you go, here’s the next 12 years.’ You just put your head down. And God gives us just enough light to take that next step, right? And we just kind of keep going. A lamp unto your path. Just enough light so you don’t stomp your toe going to the bathroom.

So, I mean, our program’s never been better. Ever. We’re off to a better start this decade than we were last decade. But again, sometimes people can lose perspective. We’ve raised the bar here. We’ve changed the standard. We’ve changed the expectations. And I love that. But as we strive to meet and exceed those expectations every single year, we’ve gotta keep the right perspective. And we’ve gotta have joy in the journey.

Listen, things can happen, right? I mean something can happen. You can be a great team, but maybe you don’t win the national championship. That doesn’t mean your team wasn’t committed. That doesn’t mean you didn’t have a lot of character. People work their butts off around here. And we all wanna win every single game. But there is no triumph without some great failure or challenge or setback or whatever along the way, right? It’s always a part of your journey, and it’s all good. Man, you start over every year and you go to work.

What’s happened in this program the last 12 years, it’s historic. And it’s been done by a lot of people. All I’ve done is my part. That’s all I’ve done. But man, these players, the staff, all the support staff that have come through this program for years and what’s gone on here, 12 years of 10-plus wins – Alabama’s had 15, the next longest streak is two.

For us to act like we’re a bunch of failures around here because we only won 11 and won the league and we lost to our rival in-state for the first time in a decade, I just think that’s a bad mentality.

And again, three national championships in 127 years. The Final 4 – it’s hard to get there. We’ll forever be the only team that went to six Final 4s in a row. That ain’t ever going to happen, right? Because it’s going to change next year.

So it’s hard. It’s really hard to win. Everybody’s got good coaches. Everybody’s got good players. But the consistency that we’ve been able to have here on and off the field, it’s incredibly rare, it’s incredibly unique.

And we focus so much on what we don’t do, instead of what we do do. You learn, you get better, you grow from each and every season. You make changes when you need to make changes. You keep learning. So that has served us well, and hopefully moving forward, we can kind of have a reset and not have a bunch of miserable people out there if we don’t go 15-0. Because it’s going to be a very miserable life if that’s what you’re waiting on every single year to determine your happiness.

Gotta bunch of great people that work their tails off and are incredibly committed to excellence every single year. And somewhere along the way maybe we’ll have that perfection. But it’s a daily deal that you have to stay committed to.”