Clemson Football: Dabo Swinney ranked No. 2 CFB coach in the nation

Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney was ranked the No. 2 coach in the nation in the latest tier rankings by CBS Sports.

Dabo Swinney has done an exceptional job building the Clemson football program from the ground up.

During his tenure, Swinney has continued to get better as a program-builder and has kept his vision of making Clemson an elite destination among top recruits.

CBS Sports released its annual tier-rankings of College Football coaches and moved Dabo Swinney up a spot, to No. 2 in the nation.

Swinney is in the ‘elite’ category, which features five coaches, according to CBS Sports:

1. Nick Saban (237-63-1 record, 6 national titles)
2. Dabo Swinney (116-30 record, 2 national titles)
3. Jimbo Fisher (92-27 record, 1 national title)
4. Lincoln Riley (24-4 record)
5. Kirby Smart (32-10 record)

Thoughts:

I think that Nick Saban is probably No. 1 if you’re just talking about overall success. Saban has been around longer and, as a result, has recorded more wins and national championships.

However, if you take the argument of which coach you’d take if you were starting a program today, the answer has to be Dabo Swinney.

Swinney is 2-2 against Nick Saban head-to-head and is 2-1 in National Championship games. Both coaches have a ton of respect for one another and are clearly far ahead of the rest of the field.

Speaking of the rest of the field, I’m not necessarily sure I would call any of the coaches remaining on the list ‘elite.’ It seems that there would be a tier below Saban and Swinney, honestly.

Jimbo Fisher is a good coach with a lot of wins and a National Championship. Both Lincoln Riley and Kirby Smart are still young in their coaching careers. Putting those three guys in the same tier as Saban and Swinney seems a bit of a stretch, at least in my opinion.