Clemson Tigers football coach Dabo Swinney has been reduced to whining that he's expected to lead his team to greater heights than the NC State Wolfpack and Ole Miss Rebels expect to reach.
Dan Wolken rips Clemson Tigers football coach Dabo Swinney for having same standard as NC State, Ole Miss originally appeared on The Sporting News
Things went very wrong for Clemson Tigers football coach Dabo Swinney somewhere along the way. And it’s distorting his own image of his program, and drawing scorn from media figures for his audacity.
Instead of seeing his program as comparable to Nick Saban’s legendary Alabama Crimson Tide teams of the late aughts, 2010s, and early 2020s, Swinney is accepting mediocrity. His latest postgame rant proves that fact in record time.
Clemson is at three losses already and stares down the barrel of a losing season with the SMU Mustangs, Florida State Seminoles, Louisville Cardinals, and South Carolina Gamecocks remaining on the schedule.
That’s okay with Swinney, who whined after a 34-21 home loss to the Syracuse Orange on Saturday and rhetorically asked why the Tigers have a College Football Playoff expectation every season.
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wolken ripped Swinney for comparing himself to mid-tier college football teams after setting the expectations high with his two national championships in the 2010s.
“In his infamous press conference last week, Swinney’s defiance was not rooted in selling a plan to fix what’s broken or vowing to make the kinds of philosophical changes that would get Clemson back to where it was from 2015-2020,” Wolken wrote.
“Instead, what he offered fans was the energy of a college student who can’t stop talking about that time they were the high school valedictorian while they’re putting a whole bunch of C’s on the report card.
“It’s amazing that he refuses to acknowledge why that’s the case.
“Dabo, you created the standard. In fact, you had a catchphrase for it that’s painted all over the walls in Clemson’s building: ‘Best is the Standard.’
“Why would anybody — especially you as the head coach — expect to hold the second-best program of the 2010s to the same standard as NC State or Ole Miss? And why wouldn’t you expect it to be a source of frustration when you haven’t lived up to that standard for five years?”
Swinney is essentially untouchable in Upstate South Carolina this season. He isn’t getting fired anytime soon, and is as safe as coaches get in this sport.
However, father time comes for everyone. Especially those unwilling to adapt to change.
Swinney won’t be safe if he continues to make it clear that he doesn’t see the transfer portal as worth his time and doesn’t get a firmer grasp on NIL spending. Clemson’s contemporaries are passing them by as Swinney continues with his antiquated ways.
Category: General Sports
