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.
Hayes said after the Tigers’ latest ACC stumble:
“Swinney didn’t recognize curveball when he should’ve. Didn’t pack it up at Clemson, call it a fantastic career at a place he loves — and run home as fast as that private Crimson Tide jet could’ve taken him to Alabama.”
Hayes continues:
“Swinney had the perfect out two years ago when Nick Saban decided he didn’t want any part of where college football was headed, and left the behemoth he built. Swinney could’ve simply said what Bear Bryant said all those decades ago when he left the monster he built at Texas A&M for Alabama.
“Momma called.”
Dabo Swinney to Alabama in 2024 was never going to happen
There’s only one problem with Hayes’ thought process here: there was never any private jet to whisk Dabo Swinney away to Tuscaloosa. That’s because Alabama officials didn’t want its native son to succeed Nick Saban as coach when the six-time national champion retired in January 2024.
“Momma” never called, in other words.
As veteran college football reporter Chris Low 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.
I believe Low’s sources were correct.
While Swinney was and is a beloved figure at Clemson (though it’s 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.
What I also remember — as do many others — is a group of Alabama fans 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.
The Alabama job passed from Saban to Washington’s Kalen DeBoer — without Swinney being considered a serious candidate, and without any “private Crimson Tide jet” that would have taken Clemson’s coach to Tuscaloosa.
Regardless of what’s next for Swinney at Clemson, there’s no need to rewrite history here with regard to the Tigers’ coach and the Alabama job almost two years ago.
The “mama” who called Bear Bryant never phoned Swinney.
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