📡 Sapakoff: The only way Clemson's Dabo Swinney winds up as Alabama head coach - Charleston Post Courier

[Bama News]

Sapakoff: The only way Clemson's Dabo Swinney winds up as Alabama head coach

Gene Sapakoff column: Alabama football fans, leading on a theory grounded in Dabo Swinney’s Pelham, Ala., boyhood and his life-changing stint as a walk-on wide receiver who helped Alabama win

www.postandcourier.com

Clemson-Alabama football chatter checked out of the Hotel California just over a month ago but it can never leave. What happened on Jan. 7, the Tigers’ 44-16 dominance, rings like a mission bell heard from Santa Clara to Tuscaloosa.

It keeps ringing.

Portable “Roll Tide” rationalization, which fits as easily into a social media post as in the luggage compartment of a subdued flight home from San Jose, goes something like this: “Ah, that’s OK, Dabo Swinney is just warming up to take over at Alabama when Nick Saban retires.”

The theory is grounded in Swinney’s Pelham, Ala., boyhood and his life-changing stint as a walk-on wide receiver who helped Alabama win the 1992 national championship.

Never mind that Swinney has pledged loyalty to his carefully crafted Clemson culture at every opportunity.

For now and for the long run.

He wavered just once, and that was in a brief moment of frustration the day after a 56-35 victory over South Carolina in November, a three-touchdown spread in a 15-0 season that some fans thought should have been a shutout.

“I just want to win by one more point,” Swinney sniffed. “If that ever gets to where that’s not enough, then it’s time for me to move on somewhere else. I ain’t never going to apologize for a 21-point win over a state rival, ever.”

And the next day he said, “Our fans are amazing — 98 percent, 98 percent.”

Let’s be clear.

Despite what many Alabama fans think …

Despite what the Alabama TV guy and the Alabama radio guy said when the three of us discussed this subject during a pre-national championship game TV showcase broadcast throughout Birmingham and suburbs including Irondale, Coalburg, Minor and Pelham …

This is the complete summary of chances Dabo Swinney ever takes over as head football coach at Alabama:

Slim.

None.

And slim just failed to get the first down on a desperate Alabama fake field goal play with Clemson leading 31-16.

But strange things do happen in college football, confirmed by Steve Spurrier starring in beer commercials, Army finishing in the Associated Press Top 25, UCF claiming a national title and recent confirmed sightings of Mack Brown in Tar Heel blue.

What follows is the only plausible scenario in which Swinney winds up as the head coach at Alabama, a 15-year process peppered with Tide pain and Clemson glory:

2020
Trevor Lawrence, Justyn Ross, Travis Etienne and friends lead Clemson to a second straight national title, downing Texas at the Superdome in New Orleans.

Swinney celebrates his third championship in four years with a morning-after visit to Café Du Monde for beignets.

2022
Nick Saban retires at age 70 in a ceremony held at inside the rotunda at Alabama’s Saban Graduate School of Advanced Achievement.

His gaudy record includes seven national championships — six of them at Alabama, including an overtime victory over Clemson in the 2022 national title game in Indianapolis.

Swinney says “no” to Alabama begging.

2023
D.J. Uiagalelei, Clemson’s star redshirt junior quarterback, returns to his home state to lead the Tigers to a national championship game victory over Georgia in Los Angeles.

Alabama finishes fourth in the SEC West.

2030
Swinney, 60, is the highest paid coach in any American pro or college sport. Plus, he has a 2-for-1 biscuit deal at Bojangles.

He has won six national championships as a head coach.

He has established himself as a Clemson legend beyond anything anyone will challenge as long as his kids (and all those grandkids) are alive.

He knows that Alabama has fallen on hard times since Saban left; Mike Dubose and Mike Shula didn’t have it as bad as the poor guy who replaced the struggling guy who was dumb enough to try and replace Saban.

So Swinney opts to save Alabama, vowing simply to get the Crimson Tide back to national respectability.

2033
Alabama gets a bye in the 16-team College Football Playoff and wins a first-round home game against four-time Big 12 defending champ UCF.

But Swinney’s Tide loses to head coach Tony Elliott’s Clemson Tigers in the semifinal round inside the New England Patriots’ new domed Belichick-Brady Stadium.

2034
Dabo Swinney retires from coaching.

LeBron James, architect of the new ESPN/FOX/Neflix/YouTube merger, introduces Swinney as the network’s new lead college football studio analyst.

Swinney moves back to Clemson.

 

[TerryP]

I got to his comments on 2020 and thought, "Sap is going off the deep end here..." Texas? Tejas?

FWIW, Saban has said it's his plan to sit back and evaluate where he is in life in 2025. Things can easily change at a moments notice. But as of now, that is what he said just a few months ago.

Understand. I often work in the same building as Gene. I can say I'm fairly familiar with how he thinks and more importantly how he expresses himself. For him to pen this article, especially with the little "nuggets" contained within that are what I'd call stretches, it reminds me of someone laughing at a funeral. He isn't comfortable with what he's written though he will consider it to be funny. And, deep down, he doesn't believe it to be true.

 

[JoseyWalesTheOutlaw]

Ok....well that settles that for sure.

F Clemson

 

[252BAMA]

I got to his comments on 2020 and thought, "Sap is going off the deep end here..." Texas? Tejas?

FWIW, Saban has said it's his plan to sit back and evaluate where he is in life in 2025. Things can easily change at a moments notice. But as of now, that is what he said just a few months ago.

Understand. I often work in the same building as Gene. I can say I'm fairly familiar with how he thinks and more importantly how he expresses himself. For him to pen this article, especially with the little "nuggets" contained within that are what I'd call stretches, it reminds me of someone laughing at a funeral. He isn't comfortable with what he's written though he will consider it to be funny. And, deep down, he doesn't believe it to be true.

"This is the complete summary of chances Dabo Swinney ever takes over as head football coach at Alabama:

Slim.

None.

And slim just failed to get the first down on a desperate Alabama fake field goal play with Clemson leading 31-16."



This is the only thing he believes to be true.

 

[sean]

must be cool to be able to see the future

why don't he go buy some lottery tickets, instead...?

please tell me this is all a joke and not what he thinks will ACTUALLY happen.

 

[94 Grad]

I'll worry about who replaces Saban when Saban announces his retirement. Until then, it doesn't matter.

 

[TerryP]

please tell me this is all a joke and not what he thinks will ACTUALLY happen.

It's my opinion he's trying his best to fill the shoes of Ken Burger who passed away back in 2015. Ken was a HUGE football fan but had a knack for including humor in his off-season articles. As a writer, Burger came the closest to Grizzard of any newspaper guy I've met...well, there's Dave Barry, but that's a different genre.

Which reminds me of Grizzards Happy Dix article from years back...

 

[Max]

FWIW, Saban has said it's his plan to sit back and evaluate where he is in life in 2025. Things can easily change at a moments notice. But as of now, that is what he said just a few months ago.

You got a link or that? I'd like to read it.

 

[JoshB]

I get that this was a very poor attempt at humor but lol at the thought of Alabama "begging" anyone after Saban retires. I know that the long shadow of Nick Saban will be something that makes some coaches think for a second, but when they look up and down at the four and five star athletes on the roster, the elite facilities, the bags and bags of cash and a fan base that is going to pack out every single game you have that shadow doesn't bother as much. They won't be begging anyone. I'm sure if it happens and Dabo continues his run at Clemson, he would be one of the ones that the school reaches out to but thats as far as the "begging" would go.

 

[BamaFan334]

It's my opinion he's trying his best to fill the shoes of Ken Burger who passed away back in 2015. Ken was a HUGE football fan but had a knack for including humor in his off-season articles. As a writer, Burger came the closest to Grizzard of any newspaper guy I've met...well, there's Dave Barry, but that's a different genre.

Which reminds me of Grizzards Happy Dix article from years back...

Damn Lewis Grizzard was a funny ass dude.

 

[TerryP]

Damn Lewis Grizzard was a funny ass dude.

It's a really good story... I just need to take the time to type it out.

 

[50+yeartidefan]

I got a good feeling nick will be around a good while longer....
....i got a good feeling Bama football will dominate CF a long time....
Dabo....he is a Clemson man now.....
It was funny story concocted by a writer...not real funny...but humorous

 

[Sgt. Lincoln Osiris]

Yeah, the only way Dabo comes back to Alabama is after he retires altogether and spends his final days somewhere on a small 20-acre farm outside of Pelham.

 

[TUSKtimes]

I can reasonably believe that coach Saban has at least 5 more seasons in him if health and environment hold true. That is a long time in football terms. The truth is, who knows who the next big thing is in that timeframe? What I hope will happen is that the University gets it right with the candidate's personalities as well as coaching abilities.

Whoever gets this job gets instant rock star treatment. Just the way it goes around these parts. Coach Fran as much as anything didn't embrace all the notoriety and outside noise that went with it and it got to be a bad fit real soon. Coach Saban's personality takes to it like a duck to water. We need those Xs and Os but it wouldn't hurt if he has a little Mick Jagger in him as well.

 

[94 Grad]

Damn Lewis Grizzard was a funny ass dude.

"Shoot low boys, there riding Shetland Ponies"
"Don't bend over in the garden grandma, them 'taters got eyes"

 

[sean]

Yeah, the only way Dabo comes back to Alabama is after he retires altogether and spends his final days somewhere on a small 20-acre farm outside of Pelham.

well that better happen within the next 10 years, or so. that area is growing fast and all of the spread-out areas are almost all gone, now.