As one coach's tenure began in glorious fashion on a stormy Saturday night in the Bayou, it felt like the opposing coach's time was ending. After a dramatic week full of lawsuits, court hearings and threats of significant penalties, Lane Kiffin did what he does best by putting on a show in a 51-10 win over Clemson. LSU looked every bit like a College Football Playoff contender.
Clemson was a clear level or two below that standard. It's the worst loss in Swinney's time at Clemson but, really, it's about so much more. It's about a man who has resisted change, who has bucked traditional wisdom and looks much closer to being unemployed than ever hoisting a trophy above his head again.
Maybe the demise began in 2021, when DJ Uiagalelei fell on his face as a starter, or in 2023 when Clemson opened the year with a road loss to Duke after turning the reins over to Garrett Riley. A headline the next morning read, 'How dynasties die: Is Clemson flirting with disaster?' There was a brief stay of execution during the best of the Cade Klubnik years -- with a few WTF moments sprinkled into a back-doored ACC Championship and CFP appearance -- until everything came crumbling down last season, Dabo's worst since 2010. Swinney looks out-matched and unable to succeed in this current era of college football.
The glory days of Clemson football, which included two national championship wins over Alabama, feel like a lifetime ago. Worse, the path back to that level of success feels impossible now under Swinney. No one other than Swinney thought hiring Chad Morris as offensive coordinator was a smart decision.
It was the ultimate double-down move from Dabo, the defiance that prevents him from evolving as other top coaches have to succeed in the NIL and transfer portal era. Morris hadn't been a successful offensive coordinator since his first stint with Dabo back in 2011-2014. He failed as Arkansas' head coach, failed as Auburn's offensive coordinator and has mostly bounced around the last six years in analyst roles and back at Texas high schools.
There's not another Power Four school in the country other than Clemson that would have hired him as offensive coordinator. Frankly, there likely wasn't a Group of Six one, either. Swinney, of course, didn't care.
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