Question: How does Clemson do it?
- Thread starter Bidgoodman
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A team that has weak conference opponents and recruits NFL type QB's ( like Watson and Lawrence) is a team that has a chance to "do it".
He literally plays in what may as well be the AAC and you give him credit for continuing to win?
hahahahaha
Saban would be 13-0 every year from 2000 to infinity with that schedule.
And of course, aww shucks is a dirtbag. I'm sure Clempson recruited the way they have (before the NCs) because everyone wants to play at auburn with a lake...
Coach aww shucks has a history at Bama, I'm sure he suddenly straightened out and suddenly learned to coach-em-up when he went to a B-level school...
Screw that dirtbag.
This is where I think we have to be careful. (Btw - I just completely misread your post).
One thing that has long bothered me is the tendency to discredit because reasons. In most cases, it's motivated by little more than jealousy of the accomplishment.
I'm probably worn pretty thin (emotionally) about it because of the tendency of folks to list reasons why the accomplishments of Team X aren't really all that good. (More on Nebraska in a moment). I learned that growing up with my cousins, whom I rarely saw, and who are UGA fans as well as my grandfather (recruited to play at Ga Tech in the 20s), all of whom hated Bryant and trashed him at every opportunity.
- Bryant's too chicken to play Ole Miss or LSU (so the conference adds those two and he creams them)
- Bryant's too chicken to play tough OOC games outside the South (so he does and wins most of them)
- Bryant (like every other SEC team) won't play teams with black players (they wouldn't play him, either)
The cold hard reality is this: Bryant may or may not have been the absolute best CFB coach OF ALL-TIME (I'm walking a thin line on the rules here, hey hey), but he was WITHOUT QUESTION the best CFB coach OF HIS TIME. That's not the assessment merely of "he won six national titles" or anything else. Go look at what his OPPOSING COACHES all said about him, some of them legends themselves.
On the flip side, the SEC of the 1970s (where he won the SEC title all but twice from 1971-81) was not - for the most part - very good, either. Some of this was simply the post-integration fallout and a number of schools suffering long-term because they waited so late to open their doors. CFB was a rapidly evolving animal from 1964-1977, and it speaks volumes that Bryant closed the door on one dynasty but opened the door on another one at the same school under completely different circumstances.
Now, to Dabo Swinney.
I know what's said (or known or whatever) about him, and it's (fairly or unfairly) a cross he bears, if you'll pardon the pun. By the same token, he DOES schedule challenging out of conference games. The man has squared off against Jawja, Auburn, and Texas A/M, and it's not his fault that some of those teams weren't at their best when he beat them.
The guy blew out Urban Meyer and then edged Nick Saban in BACK-TO-BACK games played less than two weeks apart. He blew out Bob Stoops in a bowl game, too (okay, so has everyone, but still). Nobody ever said a single word about Clemson's schedule in 2013 or 2014, when Dabo went 21-5, with 3 of those losses against national title winning coaches (Fisher and Spurrier). Not a single word about "but they don't play anybody."
The moment he's in the title game? "Oh, Clemson has an easy schedule every year." The VERY SAME accusation leveled against Saban and Alabama every year except 2015.
You can not like him and that's fine.
You can not want him to come here and that's fine.
You can complain about "the pick plays" and that's fine so long as you remember his entire strategy was to tire the defense with long drives, and he succeeded in doing it.
But Jimbo Fisher rose to the top of the ACC and plummeted just as quickly as he rose. If Clemson was not really that good a team then this would come out in the playoff.
Context is fine, but give the devil his due - he's good at what he does, and he was good at it before last year when Clemson played the equivalent of a Single A high school football team.
I know things aren't always apples to apples but to me we have seen what Clemson is doing several times over the years. USC, FSU, Nebraska, and Miami have all had 4-6 year runs comparable to Clemson's over the last 30 years. I think they have the ability to extend it into the Bama territory of a 10 year run but I think history suggests they will level off at some point in the next couple years.
Clemson right now is where we were in 2013.
The true measure of how much of this is Dabo will come out when he starts losing coordinators left and right, and his well-built machine starts losing half the squad a year early to the draft every year. That's what bites EVERYBODY, and nobody is exempt. Go look at Alabama in 1967-70 and again in 1976.
Of course, the first one was admittedly complicated by integration and evolving SEC schedules and rules. The real miracle was 1976 was a one-off year between a borderline dynasty (1971-75) and a full-scale dynasty (1977-81).
Very good coach, very good staff, continuity, very good recruiting, and a schedule that is 80% JV opponents...that makes late season runs more likely.
but he’s also a carnival huckster.
but he’s also a carnival huckster.
Venables and there ability to get kids to come back for their senior season is the reason Dabo and Clemson are winning. Look at 2 years ago they had kids turn down millions to come back. To this day I for the life of me can figure out how he got those d-lineman to come back. Now this year Travis E is coming back when he was regarded by many as the best draft able RB. We can’t get kids to comeback like that and I can’t blame them for wanting to take the money. Name a potential first round player from UA that wasn’t hurt the year of the draft that came back. Smitty wasn’t a guaranteed first rounder this year.
Many have said continuity in staff but having a bunch of top rated seniors go along way.
I also think they are able to hold some schemes in their pocket because of the weak schedule.
Many have said continuity in staff but having a bunch of top rated seniors go along way.
I also think they are able to hold some schemes in their pocket because of the weak schedule.
Practice the wrinkles all year, no film on them, and BAM, unleash them for the biggest game of the year.
Their conference is an absolute joke . With perhaps one, MAYBE two games a year, everything else is a scrimmage to help them prepare for the playoffs. With that, and all-world talent, Dabo and the staff should be run out of town on a rail if they don`t make the playoffs every year.
Again, I just don't "get" what's being said here. "Oh, the ACC is a horrible conference." I'll grant that point.
But nobody wanted to say that when it was Florida State playing in the title game (and losing it more often than not) every year. Nobody wanted to say this about the Pac Ten when USC was winning a bunch of Pac Ten titles in a row, either.
Has anyone saying this actually LOOKED at Alabama's 1979 schedule? EIGHT of the other nine SEC teams had (wait for it) FIVE losses. In an 11-game schedule. Two teams lost TEN GAMES, and those were two of the Tide wins. And yet this is the "greatest Alabama team of all-time" and "one of the greatest in history" or so goes the hype. I lived through it and it WAS a very good team, but they didn't play anyone substantial like, say, they did in 1978.
Or what about the 1966 schedule, the one where the piles of excuses get higher each time the story is told? No, we didn't schedule La Tech because Tulane left the SEC, we actually broke off the game with Tulane in May 1964 (back when SEC teams made their own conference schedules) and replaced them with Southern Miss. I realize, of course, we're slightly comparing apples and oranges because a lot of what went on was a refusal of teams to play Alabama because of the racial issues of the time.
We played two good teams in 1966, and we struggled to beat one and didn't exactly blow out the other one. And we ran the table. Make no mistake, the team was a very good one and did have a blowout win over a good (for that time) Nebraska team. But where is all the "but they don't play anybody" argument there?
If you're basically running up the win total by playing inferior competition then it comes out in the playoff wash. Nobody gets to avoid anyone tough once they make it. One can simply compare the divergences of the careers of Dabo versus Tom Osborne (who is still considered a legend and is so long as you don't examine his record too closely prior to 1994).
Remember that until 1989, Osborne's foes had to finish the year ranked in the Top 20, and I only count teams that ENDED the year in the final poll:
1973: 4-2
1974: 1-1
1975: 1-2
1976: 3-2
1977: 2-1
1978: 1-3
1979: 1-2
1980: 2-2
1981: 2-3
1982: 3-1
1983: 1-1
1984: 3-1
1985: 0-3
1986: 1-1
1987: 2-2
1988: 2-2
1989: 0-2
1990: 0-3
1991: 1-2-1
1992: 2-2
1993: 4-1
Since he took over mid-season, we'll start with Dabo at the beginning of 2009:
2009: 1-3
2010: 0-3 (narrow loss to national champion Auburn)
2011: 3-1 (wins first ACC championship)
2012: 1-2
2013: 1-2*
2014: 1-3
Now up to this point, Clemson hasn't REALLY faced a tough schedule at all. Their 2013 schedule was slightly more difficult than national champion Florida State's was. But nobody said a single word about "but FSU doesn't play anybody."
2015: 4-1, national runner-up
2016: 6-0, national champions (4-0 vs top 20)
2017: 4-1
2018: 4-0, national champions
2019: 1-1, national runner-up
Now while I don't agree, the press story is that Tom Osborne, 2nd Son of Mary mild, was a great coach. But then remember some things:
- Osborne inherited a team that had won the national championship as freshmen (when they couldn't play) and sophomores when they could; Dabo inherited a Tommy Bowen team that had spent years underachieving.
- Osborne's record vs ALL top 20/25 teams was 36-39-1. Subtract Devaney's recruits (73-75) and Osborne was 30-34-1 against ranked teams.
- Dabo is 26-17 overall and - if you drop Bowden's recruits (2009-11), he's 22-10 against ranked teams.
That's pretty damned good no matter who you are - because we're talking about AT THE END OF THE SEASON, so you know the ranked team was good. (Dabo twice beat Auburn when they ranked and got no credit because they ended the year out of the rankings).
And Dabo, of course has cashed in a couple of his national title opportunities much earlier in his career despite having a more difficult road to attain it. Of course, the immediate objection is going to be: "but you can't count the playoff teams in your overall assessment."
OK, we'll drop the playoffs. He's 13-0 since 2015 and 20-14 including the Bowden recruit years.
It is TRUE that in 2019 Clemson did not face a single foe worth a damn in the regular season.
That, however, is not something you can apply to every year nor is it true across the board.
It isn't Dabo's fault that:
a) Frank Beamer got old and retired
b) Miami stinks
c) Fisher left for the SEC
d) Spurrier retired
e) Maryland (whom Dabo beat regularly) left for the Big Ten
f) Bobby Petrino was a one-hit wonder with Lamar Jackson
I’ve actually said for years (and I’m sure it’s archived here somewhere) that the ACC has been subject to circular logic for decades...”the ACC is an elite conference because it has the dominant team (FSU/Clemson) which is a dominant team because it dominates a conference that is elite because it has a dominant team that is dominant because it dominates an elite conference that is elite because it has a dominant team...”
many of us are old enough to remember when Clemson was the dominant team in the ACC and the rest of the league was garbage...then FSU took over...then Clemson again.
It is what it is.
many of us are old enough to remember when Clemson was the dominant team in the ACC and the rest of the league was garbage...then FSU took over...then Clemson again.
It is what it is.
You make some good points, and the reality is the inconsistency of the pundits.
I've long said, "Look at 1993." It was always amazing to me.
NOT ONE TIME did the schedule of the Miami Hurricanes EVER come up in the context of national titles. But in 1993, the very same conference that housed Miami (the Big East) had a different champion and unbeaten team West Virginia. Immediately? "Oh, they don't play nobody."
Compare their 1993 schedule with Miami
They played the seven teams in the Big East - just like Miami.
They played an absolute cupcake (E Michigan) - just like Miami.
They played a mediocre team from the Midwest (Missouri) - just like Miami
Nine of their 11 opponents were similar. Of course, the objection would be, "But Miami played Florida State," but this objection falls by the wayside since WVA could play FSU in a bowl game.
We're basically saying, "Their schedule was basically the same as Miami save for one game."
And sure, they struggled to beat Boston College......the same BC that upset Notre Dame.
But the argument was in a circle - WVA didn't play a tough schedule but Miami did.
The fact they were almost entirely the same schedule didn't matter.
For those of you wanting to keep giving Dabo a break, and bearing in mind that every school has bag men (sort of), ask yourself why such a promising young coach was out of coaching for...what was it? Two years? ... and selling commercial real estate.
Have to give the guy credit.
I think that the head coach is a big part of the reason seniors at the Barn with a Lake come back for their senior years.
How do Dabo do it ever look who he play for and who he coach here. Both coaches cost us a combined of about 30 to 50 scholarships lose plus a combined 3 year postseason ban. I would not hire him ever here. Most bama fans here love Stallings I never like him. He may have been a nice guy but he won at what price. Plus when Oliver left we were never as good. People for got before he announce he was retiring fan want him gone. That Monday after he announce it every fan love him. Since he retired people for got why they did not want him as coach. As far as Dobose he was one the best DL coach ever. But as a head coach he was not ready wich to his credit he admitted that.
Prof,
I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying here. (My fault, no doubt, but can you illumine my ignorance? Are you saying Dabo was doing real estate several years ago?)
My take on the "give Dabo a break" isn't even give the guy a break; it's more of "was this a youthful indiscretion by a young man in over his head" or what precisely? I know what I've heard, and I also know I'm not privy to a lot of information.
However, if everyone is wanting to go the "once a cheater, always a cheater" route, I always invite them to discuss the stuff Coach Bryant admitted to doing at Texas A/M. The immediate comeback is "But he wasn't the only one," which sounds a lot like the current discussion.
Did Byrant do that all while proclaiming his faith every time he had a mic handy?
Asking for a friend.
I'm not quite sure of the comparison here.
So it's not the (in this case at Clemson) alleged cheating that bothers folks but the hypocrisy?
Or what exactly?
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