http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ng-alabama

Quote:Dabo Swinney was wiped. Four days as Clemson's interim coach had drained the guy whose tank is always full.

But when the board of trustees invites you to their breakfast, and you're a 38-year-old with no head-coaching experience who's presented the chance to lead a major program, you go. So Swinney arrived for the 7 a.m. breakfast on Oct. 17, 2008.

He smiled as board members he didn't know pledged their support. One tried to dispel a perception that the board only valued academics and said that Clemson could also excel athletically. Then, the trustee listed several schools that seemingly had achieved that balance. Florida was one, Georgia another.

Swinney immediately began fighting with himself, whether or not to respond.

"Literally in my mind, it was like, 'Do it. Nope, don't do it. Do it,' " he said recently in his office. "It was one of those battles where I was like, 'Well, this might be a short tenure.'

"But it was what I felt."

A few moments passed. Then, the interim coach made a statement that deserves a permanent place in Clemson lore.

"You know what?" Swinney told the group. "That's not my vision for Clemson at all. My vision is for this school and this school and this school to want to be like Clemson.

"I want to become the model."

Amazingly, no one choked on their bacon or spit out their grits.

"It was a wonderful moment," said Smythe McCissick, a trustee at the time and now chair of Clemson's board. "It was taken very, very well. It was so abundantly clear that he was a genuine person and a real leader.

"That was the beginning of what's been an incredible run."

Seven-and-a-half years later, Swinney is achieving his vision. Clemson is 56-12 in the past five seasons with three top-10 finishes, two Orange Bowl championships and last year's run to an ACC title and the College Football Playoff national title game. Swinney has signed six straight top-15 recruiting classes. The program has ranked in the top 10 percent of Academic Progress Rate scores for FBS programs in each of the past five seasons.

This spring, coaches from Arizona to Yale paraded through Clemson's offices, learning about what has worked there.

Quote:The small display area outside Swinney's office looks like a scene from "Hoarders." Clemson's two Orange Bowl championship trophies make the main shelf, along with a championship belt from the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Other awards, like the Russell Athletic Bowl championship trophy from 2014, are on the floor.

A $55 million football operations center, set to open in 2017 near the stadium, will create more brag space. But Swinney isn't big on it.

"This," he said, holding up two blown-up graphics from The Wall Street Journal placed next to his desk, "is the best accomplishment we've had since I've been the head coach. It's a simple piece of cardboard, but it's the best trophy we've got."

The Journal's "Grid of Shame" plots college football programs according to on-field success and degree of shame, which considers academic performance, NCAA violations/compliance record, player arrests and other factors. The most successful and upstanding programs are placed in the upper right quadrant. Clemson is there, rubbing elbows with Stanford.

Swinney enjoys joshing his close friend David Shaw, the Stanford coach, about how Clemson is "the Stanford of the East Coast and they're the Clemson of the West Coast."

"I've heard him say that a few times," Shaw said, laughing. "It's great that we're both in that upper right corner."

Shaw and Swinney are an odd match, different in background and demeanor, but they bonded several years ago during a Nike coaches' trip. As Swinney tried to make Clemson a true original, he found synergy with Shaw, who says Stanford "can't be like everybody else, so even to try would be folly."

It's more of a choice at Clemson than at Stanford, but both coaches believe in promoting their uniqueness.

"Operating in our own world is what we should do," Shaw said. "We've talked about that a bunch, partially because of who Dabo is. He wants good people, smart people, and he's not going to sacrifice that ideal.

"There's so much we have in common as far as how we try to do our jobs."

Quote:Others have tried to emulate Saban, or Belichick, and either failed miserably or couldn't quite reach the same heights. Swinney has created a different rubric, but one that has also succeeded largely because he tailored it to the school. As he says, "Clemson is different than a lot of places in a lot of ways."

It starts with the location, close to recruiting hotbeds but very much a small college town.

"You're kind of isolated, so you're engulfed in Clemson," Elliott said. "That's all you know when you're here."

Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who spent the past nine years as an Alabama assistant, has spent more time studying Clemson's recruiting than Alabama's as he shapes his approach. Smart marvels at Clemson's digital operation -- "They had the No. 1 website for hits," he said -- but also noted that because Swinney's approach is so ingrained, Clemson can target a smaller recruiting pool.

It works for the Tigers, but it may be harder to replicate.

"The risk is if you miss, do you have a fallback?" Smart said. "I want to do it, but I'm not comfortable because I haven't done it that way."

I love Swinney. From everything I know he is great for Clemson and the ACC, and I don't feel like there is much disagreement on that subject.

I can hear the Bama fans now - but you haven't won anything, so it doesn't count! Who cares if you have a do-gooder program if you lose? (Note: I think Clemson is tracking up and Bama down, so that argument is dumb IMO, but being in Bama territory - sort of - I hear it quite often esp. with the championship last year, there were lots of Bama fans who were amazed Clemson could even come close...)

This is a very insightful article. All anyone wanted to talk about leading up to the national title game was how Swinney was the obvious and only choice to replace a retiring Saban. This article does a lot to show just how vastly different the approach and cultures are at Clemson and Alabama. Maybe I'm just reading my desires into it, but it just doesn't seem feasible to create your own culture at Alabama. Swinney has done that at Clemson. We know that money isn't a driving factor for Swinney, but Clemson is certainly capable of keeping his compensation competitive with the top 10. The allure of the alma mater is real, but he's created a program in his own image and will likely have a statue of his likeness if he stays long term. Conference and national titles are reasonably possible at Clemson, so he doesn't need to leave for that reason. Recruiting is typically in the top 10 too. The administration is all in, and that hasn't always been the case (e.g. Max Lennon). The administration has also proved that they're willing to pony up the bucks for the best assistant coaches. He's been in Clemson for about 14 years total and raised his children here, so roots have been laid. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

(04-14-2016 06:05 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...ng-alabama

Quote:Dabo Swinney was wiped. Four days as Clemson's interim coach had drained the guy whose tank is always full.

But when the board of trustees invites you to their breakfast, and you're a 38-year-old with no head-coaching experience who's presented the chance to lead a major program, you go. So Swinney arrived for the 7 a.m. breakfast on Oct. 17, 2008.

He smiled as board members he didn't know pledged their support. One tried to dispel a perception that the board only valued academics and said that Clemson could also excel athletically. Then, the trustee listed several schools that seemingly had achieved that balance. Florida was one, Georgia another.

Swinney immediately began fighting with himself, whether or not to respond.

"Literally in my mind, it was like, 'Do it. Nope, don't do it. Do it,' " he said recently in his office. "It was one of those battles where I was like, 'Well, this might be a short tenure.'

"But it was what I felt."

A few moments passed. Then, the interim coach made a statement that deserves a permanent place in Clemson lore.

"You know what?" Swinney told the group. "That's not my vision for Clemson at all. My vision is for this school and this school and this school to want to be like Clemson.

"I want to become the model."

Amazingly, no one choked on their bacon or spit out their grits.

"It was a wonderful moment," said Smythe McCissick, a trustee at the time and now chair of Clemson's board. "It was taken very, very well. It was so abundantly clear that he was a genuine person and a real leader.

"That was the beginning of what's been an incredible run."

Seven-and-a-half years later, Swinney is achieving his vision. Clemson is 56-12 in the past five seasons with three top-10 finishes, two Orange Bowl championships and last year's run to an ACC title and the College Football Playoff national title game. Swinney has signed six straight top-15 recruiting classes. The program has ranked in the top 10 percent of Academic Progress Rate scores for FBS programs in each of the past five seasons.

This spring, coaches from Arizona to Yale paraded through Clemson's offices, learning about what has worked there.

Quote:The small display area outside Swinney's office looks like a scene from "Hoarders." Clemson's two Orange Bowl championship trophies make the main shelf, along with a championship belt from the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Other awards, like the Russell Athletic Bowl championship trophy from 2014, are on the floor.

A $55 million football operations center, set to open in 2017 near the stadium, will create more brag space. But Swinney isn't big on it.

"This," he said, holding up two blown-up graphics from The Wall Street Journal placed next to his desk, "is the best accomplishment we've had since I've been the head coach. It's a simple piece of cardboard, but it's the best trophy we've got."

The Journal's "Grid of Shame" plots college football programs according to on-field success and degree of shame, which considers academic performance, NCAA violations/compliance record, player arrests and other factors. The most successful and upstanding programs are placed in the upper right quadrant. Clemson is there, rubbing elbows with Stanford.

Swinney enjoys joshing his close friend David Shaw, the Stanford coach, about how Clemson is "the Stanford of the East Coast and they're the Clemson of the West Coast."

"I've heard him say that a few times," Shaw said, laughing. "It's great that we're both in that upper right corner."

Shaw and Swinney are an odd match, different in background and demeanor, but they bonded several years ago during a Nike coaches' trip. As Swinney tried to make Clemson a true original, he found synergy with Shaw, who says Stanford "can't be like everybody else, so even to try would be folly."

It's more of a choice at Clemson than at Stanford, but both coaches believe in promoting their uniqueness.

"Operating in our own world is what we should do," Shaw said. "We've talked about that a bunch, partially because of who Dabo is. He wants good people, smart people, and he's not going to sacrifice that ideal.

"There's so much we have in common as far as how we try to do our jobs."

Quote:Others have tried to emulate Saban, or Belichick, and either failed miserably or couldn't quite reach the same heights. Swinney has created a different rubric, but one that has also succeeded largely because he tailored it to the school. As he says, "Clemson is different than a lot of places in a lot of ways."

It starts with the location, close to recruiting hotbeds but very much a small college town.

"You're kind of isolated, so you're engulfed in Clemson," Elliott said. "That's all you know when you're here."

Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who spent the past nine years as an Alabama assistant, has spent more time studying Clemson's recruiting than Alabama's as he shapes his approach. Smart marvels at Clemson's digital operation -- "They had the No. 1 website for hits," he said -- but also noted that because Swinney's approach is so ingrained, Clemson can target a smaller recruiting pool.

It works for the Tigers, but it may be harder to replicate.

"The risk is if you miss, do you have a fallback?" Smart said. "I want to do it, but I'm not comfortable because I haven't done it that way."