Remember when Dabo Swinney was criticized for believing we’d play football?

Remember when Dabo Swinney was criticized for believing we’d play football?

When the world had turned to darkness and accepted defeat, Dabo Swinney believed there would be light at the end of the tunnel and kept his positive attitude.

He was criticized heavily for it.

What exactly are we talking about? Well, to be exact, you’ll have to go back to early April when the Head Coach of the Clemson football program was asked about his thoughts on the season during a media press conference.

"“My preference is let’s get to work and go play,” Swinney said. “That’s the best-case scenario, and I think that’s what’s going to happen. I don’t have any doubt. I have zero doubt that we’re going to be playing and the stands are going to be packed.”"

While Dabo Swinney may have been wrong about the ‘packed stadiums,’ which Debby downers will be quick to point out, he was right in principle. He remained confident. He remained a voice of positivity during a time where there was not a positive outlook. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of College Football analysts had already written the season off for dead and thought best case scenario for a season might be the spring of 2021.

Swinney, on the other hand, made an acronym that he shared with his team- T.I.G.E.R.S: Which stands for ‘This is gonna end real soon.’

"“That’s just my mindset. I’ve got one plan, and that’s to get the Tigers ready to play in late August, early September,” Swinney said. “I’ll leave it to the smart people to figure out the doomsday scenarios. We’ve got one scenario, and that’s to run down that hill and kick it off in the valley.“This is America, man. We’ve stormed the beaches of Normandy. We’ve sent a rover out on Mars and walked on the moon. This is the greatest country. We’ve created an iPhone where I can sit here and talk to people in all these different places. We’ve got the smartest people in the world. We’re going to rise up and kick this thing in the teeth and get back to our lives.”"

The pandemic isn’t over, but Dabo Swinney deserves some credit for remaining positive

Swinney’s prediction that we’d rise up and kick the virus in the teeth and that we’d have packed stadiums in the fall didn’t come to fruition- it hasn’t ended ‘real soon’- but plenty more of what he said did.

We have made strides against the virus both medically and as communities. College Football programs have shown, in most cases, that they are capable of working inside a bubble and keeping their athletes and staff members safe.

In a time where the entire world had nothing but negativity- actually, much hasn’t changed in that respect- Dabo Swinney remained positive. He gave fans a reason for hope. In the face of much darkness and criticism, he chose to inspire hope rather than create more fear and uncertainty.

And while this season isn’t going to look anything like what we’re normally used to seeing, he was right in principle because in just a few days, we’re going to see him and that Clemson football team take the field against Wake Forest and play an actual football game- something that many, many analysts and fans said would never happen, and criticized Swinney for even believing it could happen.

Yet here we are.

Will we be able to see an entire College Football season? That remains to be seen.

But, at this point, there is more hope in the air now than there has been in quite some time. And while that feeling of hope may be new for a lot of people, it’s old hat for Dabo Swinney.