Some college football analysts no longer consider Clemson’s Dabo Swinney to be an elite head coach. Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports isn’t one of those critics.
Believe it or not, Feldman has Swinney ranked as the No. 2 head coach in the country going into the 2024 season. Only Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is ranked ahead of him.
Feldman defended his ranking for Swinney while on “The Paul Finebaum Show” this week.
“Given what Dabo Swinney has done, all he has done at Clemson, I know the program right now feels like it’s backsliding some, but it’s really, really hard to win national titles in college football,” Feldman said, via On3. “Very few guys have done it. He’s won two. He obviously beat Nick Saban a couple of times.
“He’s had six top-four finishes since 2015. I don’t think that he’s handled the transfer portal in a great way to maintain as program. But, even as it feels like it’s backslid, they’re still 30-10 in the past three years. Again, just because of what he’s done before that, really revised Clemson and turned it into a powerhouse, I couldn’t see anybody else I could make a strong enough case to be in front of him.”
Clemson has struggled over the past three seasons, no one will deny it. However, the program’s “down years” are still resulting in an average of 10 wins per season.
If Swinney gets a better grip on NIL and the transfer portal, Clemson could return to its glory days of being a national title contender every season.
After all, Swinney told the public last season that Clemson is a stock worth buying.