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Dabo Swinney has made it his mission to gain respect for the ACC since being hired as head coach at Clemson in 2009. He’s often been heard hyping his conference rivals up as others around college football wrote them off.
That narrative of ACC inferiority stems largely from the Tigers‘ on-field dominance.
Since his taking over at the helm, it’s been Clemson and everyone else. Over the last nine seasons, Swinney’s bunch has been crowned ACC champs seven times. In that run have come four national title appearances and a pair of championships.
But while Clemson’s success has been well documented, others have been stuck in the mud.
Florida State experienced down years between the Jimbo Fisher and Mike Norvell eras as they looked for a coach to get them back to the pinnacle of the sport. Miami has been a mess since joining the league, while notable football programs like Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and Pitt have been in lulls.
UNC, Louisville, and NC State have experienced brief successes but nothing to put them anywhere near true championship contention.
Even with the rest of the league struggling to gain national relevance, Dabo Swinney was often quick to prop those rivals up. Always pointing to the positives, he’s been on a career-long battle to find ACC respect.
That was still true this past offseason.
“There are a lot of great coaches and a lot of great players in this league,” Swinney said at the ACC Kickoff event last summer. “It is a good league top to bottom. There is no disputing it. I know a lot of people don’t want to talk about it.”
Unfortunately for Swinney, the cloud still surrounds the ACC, exhibited by last year’s playoff omission of an undefeated Seminoles squad – only speeding up inevitable action taken by league members.
The head coach must now concede the fight with his words ringing hollow given the school’s decision to sue the conference.
Despite what Dabo Swinney says, Clemson believes it’s better than the ACC…
Or at least more valuable.
Why is Clemson doing this? “The ACC’s actions interfere with Clemson’s free exercise of its rights and are fatally detrimental to Clemson’s efforts to ensure that its athletic programs can continue to compete at the highest level, which is critically important to Clemson even…
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 19, 2024
While Swinney’s spent the better part of his career trying to convince us that everyone in the ACC is on a somewhat even playing field, the lawsuit shows the school believes otherwise.
Following in Florida State’s footsteps, the move appears to be the first step in leaving the conference with hopes of joining a more competitive league – both in terms of success and revenue.
The Tigers have been upset with the distribution model seen in the ACC compared to that of the SEC and Big Ten.
Locked into a TV contract with ESPN for the foreseeable future, conference members have had to sit back and watch while others ink near-billion-dollar deals with major networks.
After voicing initial concerns with the pay structure, the ACC attempted to appease its unhappiest members by moving to a performance-based distribution setup, but it wasn’t enough.
Now, the league is in danger of losing its two most notable football brands – and a newly introduced College Football Playoff format only adds to Clemson’s urgency to leave.
The Tigers know they’re an SEC-level program, and they want to be paid like it.
A move out of the league would end a seven-decade relationship between the two parties but look on the bright side. If Clemson joins the SEC or Big Ten, Dabo Swinney will no longer be forced to advocate for his conference’s college football acceptance.