Should Dabo Swinney have left the Clemson Tigers almost two years ago to return home to his alma mater and coach the Alabama Crimson Tide?
That’s the thinking of veteran college football columnist Matt Hayes of USA TODAY Sports following the Tigers’ 46-45 loss to Duke in Week 10 that dropped them to 3-5 overall and 2-4 in ACC play.
Clemson has lost six straight games against Power Four opponents at Memorial Stadium dating back to last year, and their home loss to Duke was a first in 45 years. Clemson’s 3-5 record is the program’s worst start since 1998, when the Tigers finished 3-8 and won only one conference game.
Alabama.»
Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!
Hayes continues:
wrote in an in-depth profile for ESPN.com only two months after Saban’s retirement, Swinney and Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin were two candidates that were «never seriously in the mix» for the Crimson Tide job, according to University of Alabama sources.
getting «complicated,» you might say), Alabama fans are — at best — far more divided over their former player.
I won’t speak for everyone, but even at the height of his dominance at Clemson, older fans of the Tide’s tended to have a more favorable view of Swinney and the way he ran his program. They remembered him as the scrappy, walk-on receiver who won a national championship as a senior in 1992, and respected his old-school approach to college football.
Younger generations of Alabama supporters — again, by and large — never quite warmed to Swinney the coach.
In the interest of full disclosure here, the author of this story also writes for Roll Tide Wire, the Alabama affiliate of College Sports Wire. I grew up near Tuscaloosa and remember Swinney as a player.
gathering around Saban’s statue outside Bryant-Denny Stadium, only hours after his retirement.
«Anyone but Dabo,» those fans chanted.
That doesn’t sound like a recipe for a coach who had any private jets waiting to take him to Tuscaloosa.
Granted, there was a time when some considered Swinney a logical choice as the heir apparent to Saban. His «little old Clemson» teams beat mighty Alabama twice in the national championship game; the latter a 44-16 mauling behind Trevor Lawrence and company that ranks as one of the Tide’s most stunning beatdowns.
But that was then.
It was before Clemson’s 2023 season, in which the Tigers finished 9-4 after starting 4-4. Before the transfer portal and NIL.
Before chants of, «Anyone but Dabo» outside Alabama’s stadium.
@Clemson_Wire on X, and like our page on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news and notes, plus opinions.
