Rivalries can harden people. The Playoff usually does, too.
But when Ohio State head coach Ryan Day was asked a disarming question — which coach would he actually trust to coach his own son — his answer came fast and personal.
“The guy that comes to mind a lot for me is Dabo,” Day said.
Not Nick Saban. Not Kirby Smart. Not someone from his own coaching tree. Day went straight to Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, the coach he’s battled on the sport’s biggest stage and the one he says has consistently shown him what matters when the cameras are off.
Built in the Playoff: 2019 made it real
Day’s relationship with Swinney didn’t start with a handshake at a clinic. It started with a collision.
Ohio State and Clemson met in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl semifinal — Justin Fields vs. Trevor Lawrence, a heavyweight postseason fight that forced two programs to look each other in the eye and stay there. Day said that first meeting is when he really began to know Swinney, not just as a brand-name coach, but as a person.
“When we first played them in ’19 in the Fiesta Bowl, they had a great team, we had a battle,” Day said. “It was Justin vs. Trevor, and we had some really good players.”
Clemson won that night, rallying behind Lawrence. Ohio State returned the favor the next season, beating Clemson in the Sugar Bowl. It’s the type of two-game postseason storyline that usually leaves residue.
Instead, it built mutual respect.
The moment Day didn’t forget
Day’s trust isn’t rooted in schemes or trophies — it’s rooted in something he saw up close.
Day recalled Swinney telling him he’d win a national title at Ohio State. And what stuck wasn’t the prediction. It was the choice to say it.
“He didn’t have to do that,” Day said. “I have been around a lot of coaches that would not even take the time. They posture and their egos get in the way. I will never forget that.”
In Day’s view, Swinney didn’t treat the interaction like a scoreboard. He treated it like people. And over time, Day said, that’s been consistent — on trips, in passing conversations, in the quiet spaces where coaches reveal who they really are.
“We’ve gone on Nike trips before, and he just spends time,” Day said. “Talks about his family, talks about his kids.”
“Great coach, but he is a great dad”
Then Day went deeper — into the part of coaching fans don’t always measure.
Day described watching how Swinney treats players and how Clemson operates as a program, and he framed it in parental terms: the standard he’d want for his own child.
“You see the way he treats his players,” Day said. “We went down to visit, and he took (us) around the whole facility. Just the way he has built it down there… Great coach, but he is a great dad. And he really treats those guys in the building like they are their sons.”
That’s the line that hit hardest — because it’s not complimenting recruiting or development. It’s complimenting intent.
The personal layer: Day’s son has already been to Clemson
The story also isn’t purely theoretical.
Day’s son, RJ, is a three-star quarterback in the 2027 class who has already visited Clemson. He’s collecting Power-4 attention — Purdue, Syracuse, Boston College, Cincinnati — and the recruitment is early enough to be more about relationships than final decisions.
Still, in a sport where coach-speak is often a shield, Day’s answer felt unusually direct:
If RJ ever became a Clemson target, Day said he’d have no qualms about the idea of his son being coached by Swinney.
In 2025, that’s not just praise. That’s a statement about trust — the kind you don’t offer unless you mean it.