I don't find too many coaching scenarios worse than Florida these days. But Clemson is nearing it.

After starting out the season in the top five, the Tigers have dropped to 1-2 with their win coming by way of a seventeen point comeback over Troy.

Dabo walked into a press conference yesterday with a answer to a question that never came. A beat reporter asked him if there was any play call he regretted calling in the loss to Georgia Tech.

Dabo took that question and went on a five minute diatribe about him having years ahead of him. He said " If Clemson wants to send me on my way I'll happily go coach and do my thing elsewhere."

With this and Brian Kelly going off after a win, there seems to be signs of these guys cracking under the pressure of NIL, transfer portal, and social media pressure. It makes you respect the way a younger guy like Dan Lanning has handled his business. Could you imagine Joe Paterno in today's game?

1 hour ago, GatOrlando said:

Could you imagine Joe Paterno in today's game?

Yes, sitting next to Saban.

I am not about to kick Dabo when he is down but...the man has not handled the Portal era well at all, practically ignoring it as a matter of fact. Nice to know that he feels confident in the rosters he has recruited out of high school, but he has fallen off in that regard as well. Clemson simply is not as talented as they were thought to be by the pundits and it is showing up between he lines. H either adjusts his recruitment strategy or he will lose his credibility with the Clemson fan base and maybe be coaching at somewhere like...Troy. That would be sad for a man who has recently won two Nattys.

3 hours ago, Steven A said:

Yes, sitting next to Saban.

I wonder what kind of analyst he would be. Saban has actually surprised me with the fact he has a personality 😂.

Seriously he is really good as long as Alabama isn't the subject.

3 hours ago, Nevada Dawg said:

I am not about to kick Dabo when he is down but...the man has not handled the Portal era well at all, practically ignoring it as a matter of fact. Nice to know that he feels confident in the rosters he has recruited out of high school, but he has fallen off in that regard as well. Clemson simply is not as talented as they were thought to be by the pundits and it is showing up between he lines. H either adjusts his recruitment strategy or he will lose his credibility with the Clemson fan base and maybe be coaching at somewhere like...Troy. That would be sad for a man who has recently won two Nattys.

He built Clemson. There will be a statue for him one day, but his recruiting has fallen into the double digits and he refuses to use the portal. Dabo likes to speak about doing things the right way and building from within. But the game has changed. Nick Saban saw it. You can't win with just homegrown talent anymore.

Kirby Smart and Ryan Day adapted. Dabo will have to or accept the fact Clemson won't win another title. He had a great five year run.

Obvious to some, but scorned by others, the Portal presents an opportunity to add depth to positions that are thin or weak.

Portal players have college level snaps behind them and video from the D1 level for evaluations.

Dabo has an outstanding win-loss record at Clemson including two national championships. Not padding the roster by adding depth from the Portal seems to be a stumbling block for the Clemson program.

This isn't the first time Dabo has done this. He took a call from a dude named Tyler from Spartanburg on his radio show and went on a diatribe about how "the expectation is greater than the appreciation". Long story short, he thinks Clemson fans still need to be lobbing roses at him for his past success instead of expecting championships every year. Now he goes off about his great record and how he will move on if they don't think his record is good enough.

This is Power 4 football where coaches make eight figures per year and are expected to win. Look at what happened to Ed Orgeron. Fired a season and a half after winning the national championship. Clemson doesn't owe Dabo anything except a paycheck for doing his job.

Dabo opened himself up for criticism by saying in the preseason that he believed his team had the talent to go 16-0.

Three things I disagreed with the most from the preseason 'expert' nationwide nattering nabobs.😁

1. Archie Manning will win the Heisman Trophy. 2. Texas will win it all. 3. Clemson, with stud players everywhere, will roll through its schedule.

Archie came into the season having never started a game on the road and unable to beat out a 7th-round draft pick before this season.

The Texas O-line and receiving corps were wiped out.

Sark won a conference title in the B12 with a superior roster (defeating OK State in the conference champ game), but other than this accomplishment? With road games at Florida, Georgia, and what looked to be an improved Oklahoma team in Dallas, the degree of SEC schedule difficulty ramped up from 2024. As of today, road games at Kentucky and even Mississippi State will not be layups. Ditto for Arkansas, Vanderbilt, and A&M at home.

All of the highly touted Clemson players on D were on the 2024 team that was lit up by SMU and Texas and lost to Louisville and South Carolina at home.

In the 2024-25 PO, Cade Klubnik played a very good game at Texas, but the rest of his stats were padded by his play against the weaker teams on the schedule.

This season's 2024 Florida State? Clemson and Texas are in the running.

Archie Manning was a great QB for the Saints the 80s.

ARCH Manning is Archie’s oldest son’s kid—not Eli’s or Peyton’s kid—Cooper’s kid.

Have you ever heard of Cooper? Definitely not.

I only know Cooper bc I went to Newman School with Peyton since preschool and Cooper was by far the cutest of the brothers.

He also wasn’t very good at football.

Maybe he took after his mom? 🤷‍♀️

Regardless, ARCH Manning is not very good.

I don't mean to totally trash Arch so early in his career. But...even with the most talented roster Texas has had in recent years, it is clear he is not destined to win a Heisman Trophy. I do believe he has enough to develop into a winning QB at the P4 level, but I said at the time, and will reiterate now, that I breathed a sigh of relief when Arch picked the Horns over the Dawgs. (His high school recruiting highlights seemed very unimpressive to my eye).

41 minutes ago, Nevada Dawg said:

I don't mean to totally trash Arch so early in his career. But...even with the most talented roster Texas has had in recent years, it is clear he is not destined to win a Heisman Trophy. I do believe he has enough to develop into a winning QB at the P4 level, but I said at the time, and will reiterate now, that I breathed a sigh of relief when Arch picked the Horns over the Dawgs. (His high school recruiting highlights seemed very unimpressive to my eye).

Quinn Ewers was an ultra five star when he went into Ohio State in that weird 2021 class. He was seen as a generational talent when he committed in 2019. He had to contest with that weird 2020 senior season . Then he spent one year at Ohio State and sat behind CJ Stroud. He transferred to Texas and actually slang the ball pretty well and got Texas in two playoffs, one being the last ever four team and the next was the Longhorns first year in the SEC.

I think people need to respect what Ewers was able to do. Last year he played injured and was called a bum all year. People were saying Texas would've beaten Georgia and Ohio State if Arch was starting. I think we all see Arch wasn't better than a hobbled Ewers last year. Will he get there? Maybe, but it's time to drop the "generational" tag.

In the NFL they tried to call Caleb Williams generational, now they're calling him a bust. Let's just see how the season progresses.

What I have learned from this thread is that the talking head experts know just about as much, or less, than anyone else.

Oh boy.... Syracuse scored on their first first possessions and broke a five game losing streak to Clemson. Fran Brown has done a great job.

Dabo surely isn't going to overreact if he gets a question about his defense struggling right? "SEVEN OUT OF TEN PLAYOFF APPEARANCES!!! TWO TITLES!!! NINE CONFERENCE TITLES!!"

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by GatOrlando

4 hours ago, GatOrlando said:

Oh boy.... Syracuse scored on their first first possessions and broke a five game losing streak to Clemson. Fran Brown has done a great job.

I can't remember if Fran Brown was at Georgia under Kirby Smart for one or two years. But in his short stint in Athens, he won over the players and the coaches. I m Told that Kirby enthusiastically recommended Fran for Head Coaching positions just as he did with Lanning. The real football freakish knowledgeable fans, many of whom have some inside ties to the team, are so high on Fran that they would hope he might wish to return as the Georgia head man should Kirby hang em up any time in the not too distant future. Obviously Fran has many fans in Athens that wish him the best.

4 hours ago, Nevada Dawg said:

I can't remember if Fran Brown was at Georgia under Kirby Smart for one or two years. But in his short stint in Athens, he won over the players and the coaches. I m Told that Kirby enthusiastically recommended Fran for Head Coaching positions just as he did with Lanning. The real football freakish knowledgeable fans, many of whom have some inside ties to the team, are so high on Fran that they would hope he might wish to return as the Georgia head man should Kirby hang em up any time in the not too distant future. Obviously Fran has many fans in Athens that wish him the best.

I think you guys won't have to worry about a replacement anytime soon. The Not For Long league doesn't have the same security as college does. Urban Meyer found that out. Jim Harbaugh was an NFL guy first.

But if you did need a dude I as a Gator wouldn't want to see Fran with the talent and resources at Georgia. Maybe he can be our next head coach once Billy is gone. I know a QB prospect that could use the development he gave Kyle McCord.

“[Dabo] Swinney is the second highest-paid coach in college football at $11.1 million, according to USA TODAY Sports.”

If Dabo is going to accept his extremely high compensation then he needs to deliver. As other have said, he has not adjusted to the current college football landscape and the game appears to be passing him by.

I think there isn't a ghost of a chance Kirby is interested in an NFL job. He has been there before (with Saban) and reportedly was not enthused about the gig.

As for Fran going to Florida--that's a nightmare for a Dawg fan, lol.