Swinney on matching Frank Howard record: "I truly have stood on the shoulders of giants"

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney was honored to reach the Clemson all-time wins mark with Frank Howard.

by Ariana Pensy - Correspondent - Sat Oct 07 23:06:13 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON - Saturday’s 17-12 win over Wake Forest marked a major milestone in the career of Dabo Swinney.

He has officially matched legendary coach Frank Howard for the most wins by a Clemson coach in the school's history with 165.

“It’s a reflection of all the great players, coaches, the support staff that we’ve had. And most of all, it’s a reflection of team, and really, really everything great that I’ve accomplished in life has come through team,” Swinney said. “I’ve certainly tried to do my part, but I truly have stood on the shoulders of giants. I mean, it’s just a blessing to be a part of it. So many great players, so many coaches, our support staff, my family, our administration, it’s a blessing.”

The success to this point is something that he says he never even dreamed about accomplishing.

“To me, it feels like yesterday that we were loading up to try to go to (Boston College) to just win a game (in 2008). That literally seems like yesterday to me,” Swinney said. “It’s not something that I ever dreamed about or ever set out to do. I dream about a lot of things, and this wasn’t one of them. Never set out to do that, never even dreamed about doing that. I’ve just always tried to put my head down and just keep showing up and just keep doing my best one day at a time.”

His best has certainly been fun for Tiger fans to see, as well as for the players. Since the 2009 NFL Draft, the first draft where the players had Swinney as a coach, 78 Clemson players have been drafted with 17 of them being first-rounders; two of those players were in the most recent draft with defensive talents Myles Murphy and Bryan Bresee, showing the consistency of the quality of players coming out of Clemson.

“My main goal, was and is, to always build a program that competed with uncommon consistency and program that built great men through the platform of football and education,” Swinney said. “The win record is cool to be a part of for sure. But, I always say what matters more than anything is how you win and that’s what I’m most proud of is how we’ve won at Clemson. I’m most proud of the 351 graduates that we’ve had. I’m most proud of the 98% graduation rate that we’ve had. I’m most proud of the fact that every young man that has come to Clemson, since I’ve been the head coach, has had an opportunity through our program to equip themselves as men.

“They’ve had that opportunity, and I’m also proud of the fact that every signee that we’ve had, every single one of them, has won a championship, most of them, multiple. I’m really proud of that.”

Frank Howard, a two-time ACC Coach of the Year, was truly the coach that put Clemson on the map as a football team and brought them into prominence. In his 30 years of coaching, he had 16 winning seasons and 12 seasons where the Tigers were ranked at some point in the season in the AP Poll. Despite having a 22% higher win percentage than Coach Howard, Coach Swinney feels he will never live up to this legend because Coach Howard is Clemson.

“It doesn’t matter how many wins I may have or finish up with,” Swinney said. “There ain’t ever going to be another Coach Howard ever. He is Clemson.”