Dabo Swinney has taken his share of shots since last season, but at least one ESPN voice hasn’t jumped off the bandwagon.
Heather Dinich is giving Swinney the benefit of the doubt after a 2025 that went sideways. Clemson opened the year ranked No. 4 in the preseason AP poll and closed it with a thud in the Pinstripe Bowl — the kind of season that frustrated the fan base and handed the national media all the ammo it needed.
As Swinney heads into his 18th full season running the program, Dinich thinks the Tigers are built for a bounce-back. And her reasoning is blunt: they don’t really have a choice.
“My outlook is they will be better because they have to be better,” Dinich said. “I talked to Dabo this offseason. You know what he told me? He told me that the pass defense last year was the worst he’s ever had as a head coach. That group is going to be better. All around, they’re going to be better defensively because they’re in the second season of (defensive coordinator Tom Allen’s) system.”
She’s also fully on board with the decision to bring Chad Morris back as offensive coordinator. That one raised eyebrows around Clemson, mostly because Morris hasn’t called plays at the college level since his time at Auburn in 2020. Dinich, though, sees it as the right move.
“I love that hire,” she said. “And (Swinney) took ownership. He said he has to be better play-calling in the close games, and that’s going to make a difference. So with the player personnel, with staff personnel, and with Dabo himself, I think that this team is a lot better this season.”
Not everyone in Bristol is buying in. ESPN’s Harry Douglas is among the crowd wondering whether Swinney still has his fastball, and he’s pointed to the quarterback position as evidence. Douglas sees a drop-off from the Tajh Boyd, Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence era, running through DJ Uiagalelei and up to Cade Klubnik now.
Klubnik looked like he was about to take off after a breakout junior year in 2024, then took a step back last season despite arriving in 2025 with first-round NFL hype. Now the job looks like it belongs to Christopher Vizzina heading into fall camp — a guy with exactly one career start on his résumé, last year’s 35-24 loss to SMU.
Dinich wasn’t having the pile-on. She thinks Douglas and the rest of the skeptics are being too rough on Swinney.
“You guys are so harsh, man. Like, Dabo’s the winningest coach at Clemson. He’s won national titles. I mean, golly, I think this past season was an anomaly, right? But I don’t think you can just erase what he’s built there. I understand the ‘what have you done for me lately’ mentality. That is college football. But the man has won far more than he’s lost. I think this conversation is such a product of the College Football Playoff. And this is why half the SEC coaches, it feels like, were fired last year, because of that mentality. But I think you’ve got to take the whole picture into perspective.”
She did give Douglas one point, though. With Swinney sitting among the top-five paid coaches in the sport, the expectation to compete for titles comes with the paycheck.
“That’s fair. He’s being paid to contend for national titles, year in and year out. He did not do that, obviously, last year. But, you know what? The way college football is right now with the transfer portal and NIL, there’s so much more parity in there. You can’t have a great season every year. All these leagues are gonna play (nine-game conference schedules). It’s just more difficult to be perfect. You’re not gonna have Nick Saban’s (success) every single year. Kirby Smart is not gonna win the national title every year. College football is different, and I think all of these coaches just need a little bit of grace to fail. But you’re absolutely right: nobody’s crying over the salaries these guys make.”
For a fan base bracing for what feels like a make-or-break year, it’s not a bad thing to have someone at ESPN making the case that the sky isn’t falling in Clemson.
