Dabo Swinney is not one to mince words, and as his Clemson Tigers prepare for a trip to Chapel Hill, he made it clear where the blame lies for the team’s rocky 1–3 start.
“It was a good open day for us, and much needed,” Swinney said, noting the bye week helped his roster heal up and reset mentally. “We probably had some guys who would’ve been out if we had played last weekend, so I’m excited that we’re as healthy as we’ve been in a while.”
The Tigers used the break to self-scout and evaluate everything, and Swinney didn’t hesitate to lay responsibility on himself and his staff.
“This is just an absolute coaching failure, honestly. That’s the best way I can say it,” he said. “I’m not pointing a finger, I’m pointing a thumb. It starts with me. I hire everybody. I empower everybody. And when players don’t play to their potential, to me, that’s coaches.”
While he acknowledged the players must be accountable, Swinney insisted Clemson’s struggles have come down to execution in fundamental areas. “It’s blocky, it’s getting off blocks, it’s making a critical play at a critical time, it’s routine decision-making,” he said. “And all of that stuff we can fix. The good news is we can coach, and we can play our way out of it.”
Swinney even leaned on colorful imagery to drive the point home. “When you’re in the penthouse, you’ve still got a pile of crap on the floor, but you just don’t notice it,” he said. “When you’re in the outhouse, everything stinks. And right now, everything is magnified.”
The veteran coach turned to his faith for perspective, stressing that adversity brings growth. “Man upstairs, that’s the only advice I need. God’s good all the time. He’s not just good when it goes your way,” Swinney said. “I’m grateful for the crap, too. I’m grateful for this bad moment that we’re in. We’ll come out of it better.”
He added that the coaching staff has a unique opportunity to use the disappointment as a teaching tool. “We’re in the valley of disappointment right now, but the soil is fertile in the valley,” Swinney said. “We have an opportunity to help nurture and grow these kids into the type of men we want them to be.”
Despite the tough start, Swinney said he still believes in the process that has delivered two national championships and 11 conference titles in 14 years. “I believe in what we do,” he said. “We’ve won 10 championships in 10 years. Nobody’s done that. It’s not broken. But with this team, this moment, we’ve done a poor job as coaches. That’s on me.”
As the Tigers head into a crucial ACC matchup with North Carolina, Swinney knows the only fix is execution. “This week is about execution. We’ve got good players. We’re just not playing like it,” he said. “We’ve practiced well, but it hasn’t shown up on game day. Now it’s about confidence and coaching our way through it.”