One Quick Thing: The media secretly loves Dabo Swinney

There are times when I think we should rename ‘talking season’ to ‘Dabo season’.

Clemson Football won’t take the field for practices for a couple more months, so this is the time of year when news can be slow. It’s times like these that people who create college football content, whether they are professionals or amateurs, are grateful when someone says something that will get the public’s attention.

The undeniable king of this is Paul Finebaum. There is nothing that people like more this time of year than when Pawl says something nasty or dismissive about the team they cover. It’s a slam dunk to get attention.

Lately, it seems like Swinney might be challenging Finebaum as the king of the mountain.

As I mentioned earlier, Swinney is not the most talented at framing his comments in a way that they won’t be misconstrued and twisted into something that sounds much worse than it really is. As a result, anytime he makes comments on a hot-button topic, people who cover college football nationally (or for any school other than Clemson) are eager to capitalize.

From the Clemson fan’s perspective, this is the reaction we see on social media.

The statement that this is how college media reacts is understandable, but it's more about how the public acts. Outside of Clemson fans, the public doesn’t want to consider the full context of the interview/comments. They want small digestible bites that paint Swinney in as negative a light as possible.

Maybe some of the college football media do actually hate Swinney (looking right at you, Dan Wolken & Ari Wasserman) but the reality is that most of them are likely indifferent to Swinney himself. When he says something they can capitalize on, they do so because it will sell. From that perspective, he is their favorite.

After all, since Nick Saban is retired, Jimbo Fisher is fired, and Finebaum seems to be losing his touch for touching off firestorms, Swinney is the only thing some of these people have this time of year.