When Dabo Swinney was promoted to head coach of Clemson football in 2008, the move was questioned, critiqued, and panned around the world of college football.
The Tigers’ program, winner of the 1981 national championship and more often than not competitive to even above average, had just handed the reigns to a young coach who had never been so much as a coordinator, and even more, had been out of the game and selling real estate a few years before that.
Funny how fate has a way of intervening.
In the years that have followed, Swinney has transformed Clemson football into a model of efficiency and success that other programs strive to achieve. In 17 seasons, Swinney’s Tigers have won nine ACC championships, made seven College Football Play-off appearances, played for the national title four times, and won the whole thing twice. In fact, Clemson made the play-offs every season from 2015-20.
The Tigers’ 44-16 obliteration of Alabama in the 2019 national championship game was Dabo Swinney’s Magnum Opus. But somewhere along the way, the shine faded a bit from the game’s former golden standard. Clemson has only made the play-offs once since 2020, that coming last season, and have not won a national title since that defining night in Santa Clara, California over five years ago.
Clemson routs Alabama for 2nd CFP National Championship in 3 years | College Football Highlights
Times change, and with it, philosophies and certain modus operandi. What had worked for Dabo Swinney when he built the Clemson dynasty was cast into the shadow of a changing college football landscape. First, the transfer portal. Then, NIL. Swinney had once quipped that he would quit coaching if college players were allowed to be paid. Dabo, of course, didn’t quit. But he stayed true to his mantras and refused to be coerced into the cauldron of football bureaucracy.
And in time, Clemson football began to fade into the backdrop.
The Tigers were still good. For the most part. Clemson finished 10-3 and 11-3 in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The 2023 season, though, was a brutal slog of ups, downs, questions, and uncertainly. The whispers about the Tigers’ relevancy and Dabo’s dogmatic approach were already growing louder, but a crushing season-opening loss at Duke and 4-4 start to the campaign had the pundits crowing like banshees that Clemson football was dead.
Dabo Swinney was no longer the golden standard of college football. He was the proverbial poster child for not adapting with the times, and as a result, had let his proud program fall from atop the Ivory tower on which it once seemed the Tigers would dwell forever. But something happened and it started on November 4, 2023, during Clemson’s game against Notre Dame at Death Valley.
The Tigers won that afternoon, 31-23 and finished 2023 by winning its final five games to finish 9-4 including a thrilling Gator Bowl victory over Kentucky. In 2024, Dabo Swinney and company finished 10-4, won the ACC championship for the ninth time over SMU, and finally made the College Football Play-off again. While the season ended in a loss to Texas, it was a down-to-the-wire game against one of the country’s best teams, and at times the Tigers flashed glimpses of what used to be. Or perhaps, it was what can be again.
Dating back to the contest against Notre Dame in 2023, Clemson football has won 15 of its last 19 games. In 2024, quarterback Cade Klubnik was among the best signal callers in the country when he passed for over 3,639 yards and 36 touchdowns.
As for the current topography of college football, Dabo Swinney may have been right to wait it out after all. The Tigers have had far better roster retention than most major programs in the transfer portal era, and Swinney has also embraced NIL with Clemson’s collective, 110 Society, being one of the more unique and successful entities in the country. More roads are leading into and through Clemson rather than out of it.
That brings it all back to the original question. Is 2025 the season that Dabo Swinney will cement his and Clemson football’s legacy? Will this year define a new era for Clemson football, or will it confirm that the Tigers’ past glory, while a wonderful story to tell, is now just an anecdote left for the warm nostalgia of fans who were there to experience it?
The fact is, Dabo Swinney has retained the vast majority of his roster. Clemson returns over 80 percent of its production from a season ago, the most in the country, along with Klubnik, the entire receiving corps, and arguably the best defensive line in college football. The Tigers have assembled a team that, on paper, could be the best in the country and a legitimate national championship contender. And Swinney did it his way.
So, yes, 2025 might very well define the beginning of a new era for Clemson football. The start of a new decade of dominance. If the Tigers win it all, then this season will also prove that Dabo Swinney was right all along.
