Four things Clemson football fans can still give John Swofford credit for
The vast majority of Clemson football fans will understandably never be huge supporters or proponents of ACC Commissioner John Swofford, but that doesn’t mean everything he did for the conference was bad.
Earlier this summer, Swofford officially announced that he would be retiring following this year’s academic calendar and that drove many cheers from Clemson football fans, and that’s completely understandable.
Prior to the Tigers’ run at the top of the conference- and even at the beginning of that run- Swofford had done nothing to help the program and just about everything to hurt it, including sanctions and always seemingly bending the rules to make way for Tobacco Road teams to have inside tracks and to be looked more favorably upon.
That being said, we’ve given you plenty of content on the bad things that Swofford has done, but here are four things that Swofford can get at least a little bit of credit on from Clemson football fans. (Not much, but just a little- as we’ve noted).
4. One of the biggest proponents for the CFB Playoff
There’s a population of Clemson football fans that don’t remember a time before the CFB Playoff.
The Tigers have been the nation’s darling when it comes to CFB Playoff appearances since the inception and Swofford was one of the early pioneers for getting the playoff system in place. He has also been a proponent for expanding the playoff to eight teams to make sure that his conference is included.
Would the CFB Playoff have happened without Swofford’s support? Most likely. But it’s still something he was able to help accomplish during his time as the commissioner.
3. ACC expansion under Swofford
While this doesn’t have much directly to do with Clemson football, Swofford has been instrumental in growing the ACC during his 24-year career.
Over the course of his time as commissioner, the ACC dropped Maryland- a good thing- and added several schools including Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville and Notre Dame as a part-time member.
While we certainly can argue his biggest failure as a commissioner was never getting Notre Dame in on a full-time basis, the additions of programs like Miami, Virginia Tech and Louisville have been beneficial to the conference as a whole- even outside of football.
2. He didn’t bow down to pressure during 2020 preseason
This isn’t something to go off buying t-shirts about, but Clemson football fans can at least acknowledge that John Swofford kept his head and showed good leadership during the pandemic, at least to this point.
We’ve seen the absolute clown show that has been the Big Ten with Kevin Warren at the helm, but Swofford has done a good job of maintaining communication between University Presidents and working with those institutions and their athletic directors to put together a season.
He helped put the ACC in position to play a 2020 football season when the vast majority of national media were still pressuring them to shut it all down and he even left a little bit of ‘egg’ on the face of the SEC when they decided to cancel all non-conference games, despite the ACC leaving an opening to play the in-state rivalries.
1. Constructed ACC Network deal
The most profitable and biggest feather in the cap of John Swofford will forever be the construction of the deal for the ACC Network.
Ever since the network was launched, it has been increasing in year-over-year revenue for its member institutions and their athletic departments.
Clemson made more than $34 million from conference revenue in 2019 and though the network still has a long ways to go in terms of revenue generation and building an audience with television providers, it has served as a nice stepping stone for the conference’s future.
There are plenty of reasons to have disdain for John Swofford if you’re a Clemson football fan, but just like anything else, that doesn’t mean everything he did was bad.