National outlet ranks Dabo Swinney as No. 2 coach in college football |
With Clemson's lack of Playoff appearances recently, some of the shine has come off head coach rankings for
Dabo Swinney the more removed he is from the two national titles, but one industry expert is still all in on Swinney.
The Athletic's Bruce Feldman ranks Swinney second only to Georgia's Kirby Smart now in the post-Nick Saban college football era. "He’s not just here because he has two national titles. Swinney is 170-43 with six top-four finishes since 2015. The program has backslid some amid the rise of the transfer portal era, where his resistance to change has cost the Tigers. Clemson is 30-10 over the past three years, which obviously isn’t bad, but things feel a little stale there," Feldman said. His Top 5 is rounded out by Kansas' Lance Leipold, now Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer and Ohio State's Ryan Day. Florida State's Mike Norvell is the next-best ACC coach at No. 10. Feldman further detailed his ranking of Swinney on the Paul Finebaum Show. "I thought 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, really hard to win national titles in college football," Feldman said. "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 his program. But, even as it feels like it’s backslid, they’re still 30-10 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."
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