Pony Ponderings
Dabo Swinney is a man of faith.
He makes no bones about loving Jesus or attempting to live by Christian principles. That is one of the reasons I love the guy—not necessarily because I share every one of his beliefs, but because he is authentic about them. What you see is what you get. Dabo genuinely means well.
It’s why I wrote a few weeks ago that I’m rooting for him.
Why I Root for Dabo Swinney
This a link to the article a few weeks back on the reasons why I root for guys like Dabo Swinney.
I want him to win. I don’t want the changing landscape of college football to chew him up and spit him out simply because he still believes a program should stand for something beyond assembling the highest-priced collection of mercenaries.
And damn, if you believe in miracles, divine intervention or assistance arriving from the heavens, Dabo may have received it Saturday afternoon.
It came in the form of lightning.
For the purposes of our football morality play, Bill Belichick makes an irresistible villain. He is the Palpatine of football. Think about all those years in New England: the hooded sweatshirt, the permanent scowl and the Patriots functioning as the Evil Empire.
Belichick sat on the throne. Tom Brady was his Darth Vader—although the eventual breakup had some real Kylo Ren vibes.
Dabo, meanwhile, remains the relentlessly optimistic hero who wants you to believe in faith, family and the transformational power of “Best Is the Standard.”
Good versus evil. Light versus darkness.
Clemson versus North Carolina.
Belichick desperately needed this one. His UNC program entered the game with its house already smoldering. His son and defensive coordinator, Steve Belichick, had resigned following an investigation that included reported allegations of possible drug use. General manager Michael Lombardi had already resigned amid other turmoil.
The season-opening victory over TCU in Ireland temporarily changed the conversation. For a couple of weeks, UNC could talk about football rather than dysfunction.
A win at Clemson might have changed everything again.
And the Tar Heels were agonizingly close.
North Carolina led 17–15 with 8:11 remaining in the fourth quarter and had the ball at Clemson’s 7-yard line. Clemson’s season—and perhaps Dabo’s future—appeared to be hanging by a thread.
Then Mother Nature intervened.
Lightning halted the game for roughly two and a half hours. When play finally resumed, North Carolina kicked a field goal to extend its lead to 20–15.
After that, everything changed.
Clemson scored 13 unanswered points. Tait Reynolds looked like a different quarterback. The Tigers appeared to have used the unexpected intermission to diagnose precisely what North Carolina was doing and construct an answer for it.
The Clemson team that emerged from the delay did not resemble the one that entered it.
The Tigers won 28–20.
Had North Carolina finished the job, would Dabo have been cooked? Would the conversation this week have centered on whether one of the most successful coaches of his generation had become obsolete?
Instead, Bill Belichick is once again standing inside a burning house while everyone debates how long North Carolina can tolerate the smoke.
Amazing.
Dabo got his miracle.
There is a long season ahead, and Clemson remains far from a finished product. One dramatic fourth quarter does not mean the Tigers are suddenly national-title contenders.
But Reynolds showed enough promise after the delay to make you believe Clemson may have discovered something. More importantly, the Tigers showed some fight when their coach needed it most.
It was like Luke Skywalker prevailing through an unexpected disturbance in the Force.
Regardless of your belief system, what happened was pretty wild.
Good prevailed over the mighty forces of Belichickian evil.
And somewhere, Dabo Swinney probably offered a prayer of thanks for an intervention from Mother Nature.
Is Ole Miss simply better than Lane Kiffin?
That question—and what Saturday’s result could mean for Kiffin’s future at LSU—continues below for paid subscribers.
Who Is Lane Kiffin Without Ole Miss?
Here is an uncomfortable question:
What has Lane Kiffin actually won to justify treating him like one of college football’s untouchable geniuses?
