Dabo Swinney Calls Clemson’s Struggles a “Coaching Failure,” Eyes Reset After Bye Week

Editor’s Note: The following is a cleaned transcript of Dabo Swinney’s opening statement and selected questions from his media availability on September 30, 2025. 

Opening Statement: Excited to get back at it this week. It was a good, much-needed open date for us.

We would have definitely had some guys out this past weekend if we’d played, so I’m glad to have everybody ready to go. We’ve got a tough Tuesday and Wednesday practice coming up. Going into it, we feel like we’re probably in as good a spot as we’ve been in a while from a health standpoint.

We took time this past week for self-scouting and evaluating everything. It’s not complicated what we’ve got to do better—it’s football stuff that’s got to get better.

It was a good week. Everybody’s in a good space mentally: ‘This is where we are; this is what we’ve got to do.’ We’ve got a chance to play and coach our way out of a hole we put ourselves in, and everybody understands that.

It’s kind of a reset on what we want to go do starting this week, and that’s do something we haven’t done outside of a couple of moments: play together and play complementary football. We talk about it all the time, and we’ve done that very little—really, truly pulling in the same direction.”

Q: You said you wanted to do some soul-searching as a program after the last game. How did that go? Is it ongoing?

Dabo: “My soul was cleansed. It was a lot of soul-searching. We looked at everything. Obviously disappointing where we are. When things aren’t going well, you look at everything. The reality is you’re never too far away from one side or the other—you’re not that far from being on the right side. But when you’re on the wrong side, everything stinks and everything is magnified. That’s where we are. Nobody wants to hear ‘a couple plays here, a couple plays there.’ We are what we are.

“From a big-picture standpoint, this has been a coaching failure, honestly. That’s the best way I can say it. We have failed as coaches. I’m not taking accountability away from the players—some guys have to play better. They’re not just on scholarship anymore; some are paid a lot of money to perform. Everybody has accountability. But this is an absolute coaching failure. I’m not pointing a finger—I’m pointing a thumb. It starts with me because I hire, empower, and equip everybody. When players don’t play to their potential, that’s on coaches.

“Our problems are football stuff… blocking, getting off blocks, making the critical play at the critical time, routine plays, routine decision-making. All of that we can fix. The good news is we can coach and play our way out of it, but we’ve got to be better.”

Q: With coaching being the problem, have you made any changes in coaching responsibilities during the campaign?

Dabo: “No. We just have to be better. We’ll be better. It’s not time for that. We’ve got good people; we just haven’t done a good job. It’s a results business. When you’re in the outhouse, everything stinks; when you’re in the penthouse, you might have a pile of crap on the floor but you don’t notice it. It magnifies things. It’s on us—that’s our job—to bring out the best in our players, and we haven’t. That points the thumb at me.”

Q: How do you evaluate play-calling?

Dabo: “It’s not good enough anywhere. We’re 1–3, so nothing’s good. There have been a lot of plays there that we haven’t made, and that’s frustrating when you’re in position to be successful and it doesn’t happen. Still on us as coaches, period. There’s been good and bad, like always, but at 1–3 it’s not good enough.”

Q: Any major changes in depth chart, personnel, playing time?

Dabo: “I don’t think so—not at this point. I think we’re playing our best players. We’ve got good players. We lost one safety, one linebacker, one D-tackle on defense; one tight end; one running back in Phil Mafah; and one offensive lineman, Marcus Tate. We’re just not playing like we’re capable. You’re always evaluating, and if we need changes, we’ll make them. But we’ve got to get these guys playing with confidence.”

Q: With Cade specifically, what are the critical football things?

Dabo: “Decision-making. Ball handling. Doing what he’s coached to do. Eyes on the right things. Post-snap confirmation with his reads. Ball security—he’s turned it over; he has to be better. We have to help him too—there are things we can do from a play-call standpoint. There are also critical plays there that we haven’t made in big moments. Disappointment creates doubt; doubt creates a little fear. What’s stronger than doubt? Belief. What’s stronger than fear? Faith.”

Q: Do you embrace the challenge of going up against Coach Belichick?

Dabo: “Are you kidding me? Amazing. I never thought I’d get an opportunity to coach against Coach Belichick. How cool is that? He’s got eight rings—arguably the greatest ever at the pro level. I wish we were 4–0—I’d feel better about it—but yeah… It’s only happened one other time—Bill Walsh and Joe Paterno—multiple national championships and Super Bowls in a matchup. Pretty cool. And this is my 300th game at Clemson. I couldn’t believe that… Three hundo—it’s crazy.”