Deadspin says that Clemson football should fire Dabo Swinney
The Clemson football team is ready to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes in the CFB Playoff just a couple of weeks from now and that hasn’t made members of the national media happy because of the Tigers’ leader and program-builder Dabo Swinney.
Before the ACC Championship game was played this past Saturday, Deadspin released an article with the title ‘Brian Kelly and Dabo Swinney should be fired if their jobs are truly about leading and protecting young men.’
The ultimate premise of the hit piece- written by Jesse Spector- was that both Swinney and Kelly were irresponsible and showing their “true colors” by questioning why the Rose Bowl Game was still scheduled to be played in Pasadena, CA where fans wouldn’t be allowed. Of course, we all know that the CFB Playoff and the Rose Bowl did ultimately elect to move the game from Pasadena to Arlington and that the Alabama Crimson Tide and Notre Dame Fighting Irish will play on New Year’s Day.
"“…both of them should be fired because they clearly are not up to the standard that their job is supposed to be about if college football is anything more than a feeder system for the NFL and a recreational brain-damage system for everyone involved.These two pissbabies have decided that what’s really important right now is that the CFP semifinal be played not at the Rose Bowl, as scheduled, but somewhere with looser COVID-19 guidelines than Pasadena, in order that there can be people in the stands to watch a game,” Spector wrote."
Of course, Spector shared Kelly’s quote when he said he was unsure if Notre Dame would compete in the CFB Playoff if the player’s families weren’t allowed to be in attendance.
Spector said that both Swinney and Kelly care about nothing other than football and that neither of them are anything other than “football savants.”
"“The gall of this, the ability to go in front of the world and say that the big issue is making sure a football game can be played in front of fans, is so self-centered and myopic, it’s almost impossible to understand how anyone could have that perspective, until you remember that the college sports world does nothing but bend over backwards for football, and that the coaches are little more than chalkboard wizards with their own little regional cults of personality.We’ve seen their true colors now, brighter and more vibrant than ever before. The next time that anyone tries to tell you that Kelly or Swinney are anything more than football savants, that they’re responsible for the development of young men, don’t believe it for a second,” Spector wrote."
The thousands of former & current Clemson football players don’t think that of Dabo Swinney, but of course some national columnist does
The thing is that Swinney gets roped in with Kelly in this article and Spector is too blind to even see the difference between what the two coaches were saying.
Swinney was never advocating and saying that fans should be allowed. His quote was simple: It doesn’t make sense to fly his team across the country and play in an empty stadium.
It’s a financial answer. It’s one that anyone that has any idea of basic mathematics and logistics should be able to understand.
Clemson spent upwards of $300,000 to take the team to Florida State in Tallahassee a couple of months ago, just for reference. Can you imagine how much more would’ve been spent to go to California (across the country) and stay there for a week? How about some common sense here?
See, the thing is, Spector isn’t mad that there is a College Football game being played- well, that’s not the basis of his argument, anyway. He’s mad that Swinney and Kelly didn’t want to take their teams out to California to play a game in front of an empty stadium. By the way, we do also know that there have been fans socially distanced in stands at venues across the country this season and they’ve been able to do that safely.
Now, we get to the big point of Spector’s argument that just simply doesn’t hold water.
He claims that Swinney and Kelly should be fired if their job is to be ‘leaders and developers of men’ because they clearly only care about football.
Well, anyone that knows anything about the Clemson football program knows that Swinney has done just that well above and beyond his call of duty.
PAW Journey and the work that Swinney has done with ClemsonLIFE and his All In Foundation might be just a few programs he should look into. How about the thousands of former & current Clemson football players that have stuck up for him and talked about how he made them better citizens and men off-the-field?
You can sit hundreds and thousands of miles away from the program and believe whatever you want to, but the truth is that Dabo Swinney is a leader and a molder of young men who should be admired, not used for cheap hit pieces that don’t hold water.
We’re not saying that Swinney is perfect by any means and he’d be the first to admit that, but at least have an idea of who you’re talking about before making such an outlandish and baseless claim.