Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney blasted the current state of college football on Tuesday, calling the modern coaching carousel a "blood sport" fueled by a "season of chaos."
Reacting to recent news of coaches with massive, $50 million-plus buyouts being fired, Swinney described a profession that has become consumed by unrealistic expectations and impatience.
'A Season of Chaos'
"It’s a season of chaos. It’s the world we live in. It’s crazy," Swinney said. "It’s a crazy profession we signed up for. It’s hard."
Swinney lamented that even for the most successful coaches, winning is often no longer enough. The standard, he says, has become "championship or bust," a bar that is impossible for most to clear.
"You have a lot of really good coaches who have won a lot of games but they’re getting fired because they haven’t won championships," he said. "And you have others who have won championships that people want fired."
'It's Like a Blood Sport'
The two-time national champion saved his sharpest criticism for the culture surrounding the firings, suggesting that a segment of society now revels in seeing coaches fail.
"It’s like a blood sport," Swinney stated. "People love to see people get fired. There’s a part of society that likes to see that."
The 17-Year Wait
Swinney argued that the current climate, which is "all about the playoff," makes it nearly impossible to build a program, robbing coaches of the time needed to establish a foundation.
To prove his point, he looked to the history books of another sport.
"You don’t get much time anymore," Swinney said. "I think John Wooden, it took him 17 years before he won a championship.”