Dabo Swinney on Notre Dame: "They got a money machine in the backyard."

During a stretch from 2015-19, you could argue that Clemson was the premier program in college football under Dabo Swinney.

That dominant era for the Tigers saw them reach the four-team College Football Playoff four times, capture two national titles, and compiled a remarkable 55-4 record overall.

The Tigers won 10-games during the 2020 and 2021 seasons before an 11-win season in 2022, and then came the 2023 season where they finished 9-4. Suddenly, the fan base that had been accustomed to premier bowl games and double-digit win seasons felt the sky was falling.

Dabo and the Tigers rebounded by getting back to double-digit wins form with a 10-4 season in 2024, but a first-round exit in the College Football Playoff and finish outside the top 10 in the end of season AP poll had many fans asking if it was time for a change atop the program. 

Then came the 2025 season, where Clemson started the season 1-3, well below the standard set under Dabo and his staff previously. They would go on to finish the regular season 7-5 before a loss to Penn State in their bowl game joined losses to Duke, SMU, Syracuse, Georgia Tech, and LSU on the year.

Throughout the year, Dabo had to answer uncomfortable questions about his job security, and just recently on Greg McElroy's Always College Football show, the narrative around the program has somehow shifted from Clemson the college football power that famously added a slide to their football facility as an option to skip the stairs, to Clemson the underfunded program with a chip on it's shoulder.

Here's Dabo in his own words.

"We've always got a chip on our shoulder. It is what it is. We don't have the alumni base some places have. We don't have some of the things other school's we've played over the years have. But we're 3-1 against Ohio State. We're 4-2 against Notre Dame."

Then Dabo provided some bulletin board material for Marcus Freeman and Irish, or at least inspired their next song selection for the next hype video in the hopper taking aim at their honorary ACC foe.

"I mean, Notre Dame has their own TV station, they make their own rules, they make their own money. They've got a money-printing machine in their backyard or something."

Unfortunately, the two won't see each other in regular season action this year and would have to meet each other in the College Football Playoff or a bowl game to see a nugget like this get the full use it deserves. The next meeting between Clemson and ND is set to take place October 23, 2027 in South Carolina.

"I mean, we've beat Texas A&M a couple times. We've beat Oklahoma a few times. We've won four in a row against Auburn. We've beat Nick Saban and Alabama for two national championships. So we've done all of that...at Clemson. 

"When I got the job here. Prior to my tenure here, Clemson hadn't won the ACC in 20 years, and it wasn't a 17-team league back in those days," he ends the clip saying.

I'm not sure whether has led to this sudden change in the narrative around Clemson, or if it's even true, but nonetheless it's interesting to hear Dabo's tenor change a bit holding onto a 187-53 overall mark and 113-29 mark in ACC play.