Dabo Swinney goal was always to 'build consistency' on, off field

Dabo Swinney learned what winning looks like at Alabama.

Before coming to Clemson as a wide receivers coach in 2003, Swinney spent most of his coaching career in Tuscaloosa. He walked on to the Crimson Tide as a wide receiver in 1989, eventually earning a scholarship, and was a member of the 1992 national championship team.

Former Alabama coach Gene Stallings gave him an opportunity to join the Crimson Tide’s staff as a graduate assistant upon graduation in 1993. Swinney worked on Stallings’ staff for two seasons as a grad assistant before being promoted to wide receivers and tight ends coach. When Stallings resigned at the end of the 1996 season due to frustrations over NCAA sanctions, Swinney continued coaching Alabama’s wideouts under new coach Mike DuBose.

Swinney worked at Alabama up until 2000, taking off the 2021 season as the Crimson Tide paid out the rest of his contract because of DuBose’s firing. Across 13 years at Alabama, he won one national championship and two SEC titles and was a part of 10 winning seasons.

The drive for 10-win seasons and national championships started at Alabama. And it is why after Clemson won 10 games and the ACC championship in 2011 for the first time in 20 years, Swinney wasn’t close to satisfied.

Deshaun Watson helped Clemson win its first national title since 1981. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

“If you’re going to be great at anything, and back in ’11 we won 10 games for the first time in 20 years. … You have to understand I spent 13 years at Alabama,” Swinney said last week on the Colin Cowherd Podcast. “So I had a mentality when I came to Clemson. Thirteen years at Alabama, now I’m entering my 19th at Clemson, 13th as head coach. That wasn’t a very big deal to me. My focus was, OK, that’s great. Let’s go put three, four, five, six years of this in a row together because we’re never going to be considered great if we don’t do something really, really well for a long period of time.

“That was really my goal from day one, was to build consistency on the field, consistency off the field. Nine of the last 10 years, top-10 academically. … We’ve built a model of consistency, and we’ve done it our way. We’ve done it in a consistent way.”

Swinney has built that dominance he learned about now at Clemson.

The Tigers have six-consecutive ACC titles. They’ve made the College Football Playoff six-straight years, too, winning two national championships in the process. And they’ve put together 10-consecutive 10-win seasons since 2011.

What Swinney takes the most pride in, however, is accomplishes off the field. Clemson earned a 93% graduation success rate in the latest data released by the NCAA this past November.