Expectations are at an all-time high in the world of College Football. It seems like everyone – fans and athletic directors included – wants a championship program, but no one has the patience to let it be built. The job that Dabo Swinney has done at Clemson is proof of the rewards of patience.
Look around the country and you will be sure to find at least one example of a coach on the “hot seat”. While there is nothing wrong with trying to improve your program, the leash on coaches is far-too short nowadays.
Take Butch Jones at Tennessee for example, who has had just one losing season in his four previous seasons in Rocky Top. The Vols have been knocking on the door of double digit wins each of the last two years, and have notched three consecutive bowl victories. Yet, Jones’ job is in jeopardy. For perspective, in Dabo Swinney’s first four seasons at Clemson he had just two winning seasons and one bowl victory.
On the flip side of things is a coach like Mike MacIntyre at Colorado. Athletic director, Rick George stuck by MacIntyre’s side through his first three abysmal seasons. Going into 2016, Colorado was 10-27 under MacIntyre, however, he had instilled the culture and recruited the type of players that he needed to succeed. In 2016 the Buffalo’s exploded on to the national scene, winning 10 games and making it to the PAC-12 Championship game.
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There are certainly cases where a coach has been at a program for an extended period of time and they have begun to plateau, i.e. Les Miles at LSU, Mark Richt at UGA. In those cases, changes need to be made. I can understand having championship expectations, but, coaches need at least four seasons to truly build a program their way.
At Clemson, Dabo Swinney was able to build, slowly but surely, and now he has an elite program with no signs of slowing down. The Tigers have won 10+ games for six consecutive seasons and are recruiting at an unprecedented clip.
After Clemson won the National Title this season, Rick Bonnell wrote a piece for the Charolette Observer detailing a conversation between Swinney and then Athletic Director, Terry Don Phillips in 2010. This conversation followed Clemson’s embarrassing 29-7 loss to South Carolina at the end of the season. Rather than fire Swinney, Phillips said the following:
"Dabo, I know you’re disappointed and there is going to be a lot of criticism of you and me. But listen: I’m more confident right now that you’re the right guy for this job than I was when I hired you. Just continue to do things as you’ve been doing them, and I believe in my heart all this will work out."
Phillips could have easily fired Swinney and no one would have batted an eye. However, he stuck by Swinney and here Clemson sits as one of the elite programs in College Football. This goes to show that success is right around the corner if you are patient enough to see it through.
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