Saluting Swinney:
Clemson’s coach has put together a string of playoff runs that puts him in rare company.
ARLINGTON, Texas – The College Football Playoff is only 5 years old. It is too young to garner the same reverence as the septuagenarian NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Surviving to the national semifinal during March Madness has been lauded as a bench mark for decades. Qualifying for the four-team playoff bracket should carry that same esteem.
Perhaps it is the selection process, which stirs as much controversy as celebration. Perhaps it is the remnant reverence for the traditional bowl system, which subjectively selected the champion with no tournament format. Perhaps it is simply our jaded, unappreciative, cynical society.
We chase the next great thing so transiently, so nonchalantly that we neglect to give the current great thing the attention it deserves.
One does not need to hang a banner or design a ring to commemorate every single milestone. But one can dedicate at least a moment, during the rapid rat race, to acknowledge a venerable achievement.
Coach Dabo Swinney essentially has directed Clemson to four consecutive Final Fours. Only five coaches have achieved that feat in Division I basketball:
❚ Geno Auriemma, Connecticut, 2000-04, 2008-present
❚ Mike Krzyzewski, Duke, 1989-92
❚ Muffet McGraw, Notre Dame, 2011-15
❚ Pat Summitt, Tennessee, 1986-89, 1995-98, 2002-08
❚ John Wooden, UCLA, 196775
This streak vaults Swinney into exceptional company. No one can diminish the fact that finishing in the Top 4 of a 130team division is difficult. Reaching that pinnacle in four consecutive seasons is remarkable.
“We’re not going to make the playoff every year. I’m just going to go ahead and news flash everybody here,” Swinney said one day before leading his team to a 30-3 victory in a playoff semifinal game against Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl.
Only one other coach has reached the playoff four consecutive times. Nick Saban has steered Alabama to the bracket in each of the past five years. He and Swinney will meet in the national championship game on Jan. 7 for the third time in four years. The teams split the first two meetings.
Swinney has attempted to temper the expectation of perfection his team has carried during this four-year run to prominence. He has attempted to elucidate the inherent difficulty in each season, each week.
Clemson was expected to roll through the regular season, repeat as Atlantic Coast Conference champion and return to the playoff. But lofty expectations do not make those tasks any easier.
The perfection Clemson has achieved requires exceptional talent, which the team has compiled. But it also demands focus, diligence, persistence and sacrifice, which Clemson has cultivated.
“The biggest thing, if you look over the last eight years of our program,” Swinney said. “I just think the consistency in these type of games has come from just the culture of our program, our daily focus and how we go about on a weekly basis.”
The Tigers are used to ACC titles, Top 5 rankings and New Year’s weekend bowl games.
It has become routine, but no one should allow it to become stale.
In one decade, Swinney has elevated Clemson to a plateau it never enjoyed before. He has expanded the recruiting footprint and advanced the Clemson brand from Hilton Head to Honolulu.
He has put together a roster that can lose a future firstround draft pick but lose no production. Starting defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence was suspended for the Cotton Bowl after failing a drug test. Nevertheless, Clemson limited No. 3ranked Notre Dame to three points.
Auriemma’s stretch of dominance will never be duplicated in football. But Swinney has assembled a team that could propel him to Summitt’s stratosphere.
If Clemson continues to recruit and compete at this rate, it will string together multiple Final Four streaks.
Clemson’s brightest stars against Notre Dame were freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence and freshman receiver Justyn Ross. Clemson will enjoy that combination for at least two more seasons, while augmenting them with more coveted recruits.
The feat is not a comprehensive measure of Swinney’s merit. The Final Four tally does not signify a coach’s caliber. One of the most iconic coaches in the history of college athletics, Georgetown legend John Thompson, reached only three Final Fours through his 33-year career.
Yet the feat is a measure of Swinney’s consistency and his audacity. He willed this dream run into fruition, and there is no decline in sight.
Clemson must shift its focus to its next task to chase its second national championship in three years, but for at least a little while, Clemson fans, haters and indifferents should appreciate what has been produced in South Carolina.
Swinney is in elite company. Clemson is in an elite class. The Tigers will raise another banner and continue to raise the standard.