Gregg Doyel

Clemson is the new West Virginia

Ya know...I really hope Clemson isn't pinning the success of Swinney on the Backyard Brawl.  That's not the best barometer on how successful that will be.  I honestly don't understand this move.  When a HC's program isn't working, it's not just the fault of the HC but also their staff as well, Swinney was still a part of the imagined or real issues that they had with Bowden.  I thought the idea was to promote up if the season was going well and if you're going to chop heads, you start with a clean slate and not with someone who will carry over the remnants of the program you thought wasn't working in the first place.

Clemson is the new West Virginia

Maybe we should have got a big name like Charlie Weiss and pay him 20 something million dollars that worked out good!

Clemson is the new West Virginia

Dabo Swinney is a fine coach, great recruiter, and a good man. He's young, and lacks experience as a head coach, but Tommy Bowden had years of experience and look where it got him. Charlie Weiss too for that matter.
The only downside for me is that I hoped Dabo would end up on the staff at Alabama.

Common Theme with AD

This has been the MO of Phillips:   put the head coach on the hot seat for early season stumbles, head coach finds a way to win some big games down the stretch, head coach beats crap out of So. Carolina, head coach gets 7 year extension.  Knew watching the game Sat that Swinney was going to be offered the job:  beat the division winner and beat Carolina.  Hope your wrong.  Hope he can inspire a disciplined, physical team like the last Alabama product we had as head coach.

Big East may be the worst but.....

The ACC is right behind them because the ACC is a joke as well.  The Pac - 10 other than USC is terrible and has been for a while.  So while the Big East may have been consistently the worst in the BCS, check the rankings of the top teams from the Big East and the ACC you will find that the Big East has had someone ranked ahead of the ACC a lot.  In fact since 2002, the Big East has had a team ranked higher at the end of the season 5 times including this year so far compared to the ACC only having a team higher than BE rankings 2 times.  Actually in 2006 the Big East had 3 teams in the top 12.  The ACC consistently struggles to have a team in the top 15 and would be the closest team to the average ranks of top 15 or better to retain a BCS Bowl for the conference.

Clemson is the new West Virginia

The rankings argument is stupid because the ACC teams were about the same so they beat each other. Go check out the Acc's out of conference record this year that should quiet you ACC haters. They don't have a dominant team but most of the teams are pretty young and are on the up. I will agree the ACC has been awful in the BCS but that is because of no dominant team but top to bottom they are pretty competitive.

Clemson is the new West Virginia

Dude, at least your grammar and spelling are good, so you must have paid some attention in class, but why does the world feel the need to heap dung on WV?  I don't think that Stewart's the right guy for the job either, but we don't heap criticism or drop reference to other programs struggling when things go bad.  You guys need to quit dissing the mounites and just leave them alone.  I live in buckeye territory now, and personally I think they have been a bigger dissappointment than most teams considering the lofty expectations, but no WV is and always will be an easier target, so jump on the bandwagon and fire away!

Clemson is the new West Virginia

What a lot of outsiders including the logically flawed writer do not understand is that Dabo is our recruiting coordinator as well. The main reason he was signed as HC is because he got players like CJ Spiller, Antoine McClain and Jamie Harper to sign with out of state Clemson when they were being wooed by home state schools Alabama, Auburn, FSU , Florida and Miami. He is forthright, reliable and honest , which will go a long darn way come February signing day.

His hard work and winning attitude have not just won over the Tiger faithful , but as he stated from the get-go , he would not accept the HC job without qualifying for a bowl, which he did emphatically. I think this is a smart hire from two vantage points . First , he will be cheap. He cannot get the type of contract a more experienced guy could have gotten, and if we win big next year while flying under the radar he will begin to be seen as a genius hire. Secondly, his staff will also feature Billy Napier at OC, who is also on the cheap as a first time OC and is the second cog in Clemson's recruiting team under Bowden.

The future is a funny thing , you know it's coming but have no idea where it is headed. No disrespect to the writer of this article , but with the "crystal ballisms" that he used in his article maybe he should focus more on facts and stats than trying to dig up the bones of Edgar Cayce. The Tigers will be fine down the road with Dabo Swinney , and you heard that here first.

not quite the same

Doyel,

I can see your point of view, but I still don't think it's the same situation.  Terry Don Phillips has interviewed a bunch of candidates while giving Dabo a chance at the same time.  It was not like Dabo was hired immediately...he had to prove himself throughout this season.  I'm a grad student here at Clemson and I can tell you that the positive energy that this man brings to the football team is great.  Not only that, but he has gotten the players more involved in the community (with the Tiger Walk) and you would not believe the change of attitude around town.  Sure, Clemson still has a way to go, but if you look at this half of the season under Dabo, the team has played much better.  If Dabo can pick up a team mid-season and get them to a bowl game, imagine what he can do after having a full offseason to prepare?  Also, if he assembles the right staff (because I doubt Vic Koenning is going to stick around), they should be just fine.  Maybe they do go 4-8 for one season, but don't be surprised if it's 10-2 the next year.

Clemson is the new West Virginia

 Great logic there....comparing it to BIll Stewart's hiring...which I admit wasn't the correct thing to do.  But was it a good idea to promote Tom Osborne at Nebraska?  Barry Switzer at Oklahoma?  Gary Patterson at TCU?  Lloyd Carr at Michigan?  Phil Fulmer at Tennessee?  While those guys were run off in the end they are did very well at those schools.  Point is, for every failure you give me, I can give you a success.

  As you know following college football, you just don't know.  Swinney, as you should know, is a great recruiter.  Don't judge him as a wide reciever coach. But if you want to, that is fine.  But can you honestly say the Texas Tech coach is a fantastic coach because of Michael Crabtree's success?  Jerry Rice's coach at Tenn. Valley state was just off the charts in that category.  You know as well as I do, wide receiver and running backs coaches at the collegiate level can't coach a player to make plays. They coach them to read defenses,  pick up blocks, etc.  They don't coach them to make cuts or make great catches.  The majority of them are recruiters. Period. 

As Wimp Sanderson would say, if you get rid of your coach, you better know who the next one is going to be.  I think these programs get rid of coaches and then panic by having to have someone before bowl games are done or hoping to get someone.  Most have no clue who their next coach is going to be or even an idea if they can get the guy they "hope" is the coach.

Give Swinney a few years.  He at least deserves a shot at a job....it just happens to be Clemson.