ESPN analysts weigh in on Dabo's fiery rant, 'inflection moment' for Clemson football

ESPN's Rece Davis says Dabo Swinney can win the way he wants to win without heavy transfer portal use.

by TigerNet Staff - Thu Nov 02 11:06:16 GMT-04:00 2023

A 4-4 Clemson football team picked up more attention than normal from a national standpoint after head coach Dabo Swinney's call-in show Monday that featured a six-plus minute fiery defense of himself and the program.

ESPN College GameDay host Rece Davis' podcast covered that event and more on the Clemson football program with some thoughts from panelists Ryan McGee and Pete Thamel this week.

"Fans being upset about a subpar season -- that to is normal, and it's also great," Davis said. "Because if fans acted how sometimes we in the media acted that they should, 'Well, you should be grateful for the past'...If you have that attitude about an enterprise, well, the coach doesn't make $10 million. Media companies don't clamor for the rights to do it...You have to have a little bit of that. But there's a limit to everything and you can go way too far and Tyler from Spartanburg did, because he got way too personal with Dabo Swinney, got way too insulting and was way too know-it-all for his own good...Booger (McFarland) was of the opinion that you're (Swinney is) not going to win that, which is true, so you just have to wear it, which is reasonable.

"But the guy went so far that I felt like he had it coming. And good for Dabo giving it to him, because respect the fans, but respecting the fan doesn't mean that they get to say whatever they want to and know that there's no blowback. Yes, free speech -- they certainly can say whatever they want to. I'm talking about they can't say it without expectation of getting it right back. Especially if they're going to approach it the way Tyler [Davis imitating Swinney's saying of Tyler's name], which was my favorite part of Dabo's rant, when he said 'Tyler.'...You're going to get some blowback and I thought that his blowback was well-earned."

Thamel says Clemson is at an inflection point for the program after an unprecedented run of success for the program and in the middle of a struggling season.

"I think we're at an interesting inflection moment for Dabo here. He is a quintessential victim of a monster he created. Right?," Thamel said. "Clemson had some nice moments, but Clemson has never been a monster like it pretty much was for the decade before this season. So, it's always a fascinating case study in fan behavior when you are blaming the coach for not living up to what the coach did. It's true. This is all Dabo at the end of the day. Now, they had great administration, great support -- obviously, I think they miss Brent Venables tremendously. He was the backbone. There was a pretty distinct pivot point from there. They had some good offensive coordinator hires. I think Dabo right now, if you take a snapshot of where he and his staff are, there's some overlays to what happened to David Shaw and Stanford. Now David didn't have that level of success, but Stanford had obviously never had the national championship level of success. But they fell a little bit too in love with their own program. And promoted people from within their own program, and the lack of outside ideas.

"Because remember, Chad Morris was the first guy who came in and really got that offense going. Then there was a string of coordinator hires after that all of whom -- some came from the inside too. It was an outside infusion that started this, and then they were very successful moving people up from the inside, whether it be Tony Elliott, Jeff Scott, etc. Brandon Streeter didn't end up working out, but did have some good years there at different position coaching...If you look at that Clemson staff right now, it's a lot of guys that have been at Clemson, who've been through the success, who've seen it all, and you wonder if now Dabo has to take a step back and say, 'Do we need an influx of outside ideas?' Now, they went out and made a pretty distinct move...They're darn close. They are a Playoff-level team conversation team last year. Now obviously they're 4-4 this year."

Thamel said that the caller had a right to air his grievances, and he says Swinney was just his authentic persona.

"I will say this for Tyler, if you have a talk show and you're underperforming, you get paid handsomely to go to your talk show, so if some guy wants to read a tiger insider message board manifesto, you've got to take to some extent," Thamel said. "Now, I don't have any problem with Dabo responding, but you can't show up at 4-4 at your talk show and expect lilacs and roses to be thrown at you. I have no problem with what Tyler did, and I have no problem with Dabo being human. I think one thing about Dabo that I've always appreciated is he's let it rip. Dabo has always gone straight from his soul. And he's been authentic about that. I do think what's happened to Dabo in maybe the last 4-5 years is that once he won the second title, he sort of earned a pulpit where anything he said was considered news. And I think that has made him a little bit uncomfortable in the past few years...

"He's always stayed authentic and some of his takes are divisive quite frankly. When you're saying it from a two-time national championship pulpit, you're going to cause more division. I do think there's a part of Dabo like most humans that wants to be liked...I think we've just seen that show up in the last few years..."

Davis isn't convinced that the rant will be the rallying call for the team that some think, but he adds that he thinks Swinney can win the way he wants to build his roster, even in the transfer portal era.

"I think every week it's easy to go, 'Now we go,' with Clemson," Davis said. "Now Tyler has ticked off Dabo and probably insulted all the Tigers -- here comes Notre Dame, 'Now we go.' Well, shouldn't have they gone against NC State? And the thing is, the one thing I'll say -- I think they're OK on defense. It's the offense. It's offensive line and wide receivers, and they need better quarterback play...

"Also this whole transfer portal thing, everybody is like if he will just embrace the transfer portal, it'll all be fixed. Maybe he needs to adjust that...You don't have to. You really don't. But you have to recruit at a high-enough level and get the guys who you can keep to do it. Would he be better served to be in the mix for a (FSU receiver transfer) Keon Coleman? Sure, nobody is going to dispute that. But he doesn't have to become USC or Colorado either. He doesn't have to. I think the notion that he should just get a new offensive line from the portal -- it doesn't work that way. And it shouldn't work that way for him. It's not what he believes in. And no one should suggest, in my judgment, that that's the path to fixing Clemson.

"The path to fixing Clemson is to get better on the offensive line, improve your quarterback play and find (players like former Clemson receivers) Mike Williams and Sammy Watkins again..."

McGee recalled when he visited Swinney's office when he was an interim coach and seeing binders full of notes Swinney had picked up over the years for the moment of being a head coach. He compared Swinney to an industry standard in Alabama head coach Nick Saban.

"You have X's and O's coaches and you have CEO coaches. Dabo is a CEO coach. He is as good as his staff. It's always been that way. I think he would acknowledge that," McGee said, before describing the binders. "There was no football in there. It was all how you run practice, how do you recruit, what kind of building do you need, what are your facilities, what are they going to eat -- it was all that kind of stuff. And so, you think about that once he had the right combination with Jeff Scott and with Tony Elliott and with Brent Venables and he kept that group together for a long time. But then once they inevitably left for head coaching jobs, which happens at Alabama every single year, and we talk about the fact that he's got to get Klubnik up to speed. It's exactly what Alabama has had with Jalen Milroe and they've burned the building down and rebuilt it and they're really good and the quarterback is really good.

"So, Saban just keeps doing over and over and over again for going on to two decades what other coaches can do for a really intense period of time and then figure out how to keep it going...He's as good as his staff...Saban has figured (the transfer portal out). And I think Clemson is still trying to figure it out. And even handling callers on the call-in show during the week, Saban does that very well. And now I think that Dabo is getting there."