Speaker 1: I got a chance to interview the head coach of
Speaker 1: the Clemson Tigers, mister Dabo Sweeney. Now, the cool part
Speaker 1: about this interview is that Dabbo doesn't do a lot
Speaker 1: of interviews, and so I asked him why did he
Speaker 1: choose to come on the On Fraid Show And he
Speaker 1: was like, well, a lot of people ask me about football,
Speaker 1: a lot of people asked me about faith, but never
Speaker 1: really both in the same interview. And you know, here
Speaker 1: we are faith, family, fatherhood, food and sports. So it
Speaker 1: was really interesting to see the dynamic in the locker room,
Speaker 1: the dynamic with the players, the dynamic with everybody on staff.
Speaker 1: They are all bought into Dabo's vision, and just the
Speaker 1: fact that he has so many former players on staff.
Speaker 2: And I just loved it.
Speaker 1: And the coolest part about it is their Paul Journey
Speaker 1: pa W Journey and it's their program that they turn
Speaker 1: young men or boys who come into their program.
Speaker 2: And put out men at the end. And the fact
Speaker 2: that they don't.
Speaker 1: Push a lot of players to the well, sorry excuse me,
Speaker 1: that they don't push players to the portal, and that
Speaker 1: they are all about development makes them a very unique program.
Speaker 1: And I did come in with some preconceived notions about
Speaker 1: Dabbo Sweeney, but I left a full believer in what
Speaker 1: he's doing, so much so that I would send my
Speaker 1: son to go play for this man. I hopefully you
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed this interview. Hopefully you love it and make
Speaker 1: sure that you guys like to subscribe, Tell a friend
Speaker 1: about the Unafraid Show and up share.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's two ways to be successful.
Speaker 4: You can do what everybody else does and just try
Speaker 4: to outwork them, out smart on this and that.
Speaker 3: Or you can be unique and different.
Speaker 4: We've been unique and different for sixteen years. People see
Speaker 4: this version of me. I've never forgotten where I've come from.
Speaker 4: I know who I am, and I always said if
Speaker 4: I got a chance to be a head coach, I
Speaker 4: wanted to do it in a different way, and that's
Speaker 4: what we've been able to do here. I was really
Speaker 4: to be successful. I never chased money. I just chased
Speaker 4: my happiness and my passion. You don't hear anything bad
Speaker 4: about Clemson from inside Clemson. It's always from people on
Speaker 4: the outside of our program that don't know me.
Speaker 3: They don't know our program.
Speaker 4: We've won the most games, got the most national championships,
Speaker 4: most conference championships, most draft picks, most first round picks,
Speaker 4: highest graduation rate.
Speaker 3: I think our process is fulfilling our purpose.
Speaker 4: If it's not fulfilling somebody else's purpose, well I'm not
Speaker 4: trying to fulfill somebody else's purpose. Fourteen consecutive years with
Speaker 4: a postseason win, that's never been done in college football history.
Speaker 4: But we've beaten Alabama and two out of three national championships.
Speaker 4: We've been to seven out of ten playoffs, we've been
Speaker 4: to won the league.
Speaker 3: Eight out of the last ten years. So why do
Speaker 3: I want to be like everybody else?
Speaker 1: And now we are on with the head coach of
Speaker 1: the Clemson Tigers, mister Davos Sweeney, a man who has
Speaker 1: won nine ACC championships, who national championships.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you, good to be on with it.
Speaker 2: That's not too bad for a D plus higher.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing that the plus was across.
Speaker 3: Right, that's exactly you've done your homework.
Speaker 1: So in this era of college football, right, you have
Speaker 1: so many people who are concerned about wins and losses,
Speaker 1: and I think that you get lost, like the just
Speaker 1: being proud of putting a good product on the field
Speaker 1: and being.
Speaker 2: Proud of what it is.
Speaker 1: So how are you dealing with that in terms of
Speaker 1: the noise on the outside of Oh, how come we
Speaker 1: haven't won another national championship yet when you're graduating ninety
Speaker 1: eight percent of your players you are, you know, the
Speaker 1: highest retention in college football.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't listen to it. So it's really that simple.
Speaker 4: I think we all have a choice every day.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: First of all, you know, the attitude we think that
Speaker 4: we choose to have that kind of drives your habits.
Speaker 4: And we also have a choice on what we let in.
Speaker 4: We always tell our players all the time, you know,
Speaker 4: ships don't sink because of the water around them. They
Speaker 4: sink because the water gets in them. And you know,
Speaker 4: that's kind of how it is in life, you know.
Speaker 3: And we live in a world now where.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of noise and you have a decision
Speaker 4: every day on what you're going to listen to. And unfortunately,
Speaker 4: a lot of times we wake up the first thing
Speaker 4: we do is we start taking buckets of water and
Speaker 4: just throwing it in our ship. With those phones and
Speaker 4: with other people's opinions and other people's thoughts and and
Speaker 4: and things like that, and then we wonder why we're
Speaker 4: dragging through life. So I don't really I just I
Speaker 4: block all that out. But how I deal with it
Speaker 4: is perspective, you know. I think that's very important. And
Speaker 4: you know, I stay focused on the main thing, you know,
Speaker 4: and that's that's my fate, number one. But the purpose,
Speaker 4: my purpose as a man, and then the purpose of
Speaker 4: this program. And yeah, I mean it's a it's an
Speaker 4: interesting thing, you know, to kind of you know, kind
Speaker 4: of be on the inside and kind of you know,
Speaker 4: see you know some of the narratives that people put
Speaker 4: out there. But in the reaction is we've won three
Speaker 4: national championships in one hundred and thirty years. So if
Speaker 4: winning a national championship is simple, and I.
Speaker 3: Mean, who else has done that exactly?
Speaker 4: But we've been We've been to the playoffs seven times
Speaker 4: in ten years. You know, we're the only team to
Speaker 4: go to six final fours. We've won our lead eight
Speaker 4: out of the last ten years. So we didn't go
Speaker 4: to the playoff ten out of ten years. But nobody
Speaker 4: else has been seven out of ten years. I think
Speaker 4: maybe Alabama. Nobody's won eight out.
Speaker 3: Of ten years. In their league championship. I think the
Speaker 3: last five years we're fifth in the country and wins.
Speaker 3: But we are fulfilling the purpose that we talk about here.
Speaker 4: So when I got the job here sixteen years ago,
Speaker 4: you know, first staff meeting, what's that going to be like?
Speaker 4: It's a big meeting. It's your first staff meeting, a
Speaker 4: group of people. Okay, what's what we're gonna be about?
Speaker 4: And you know, literally sixteen and a half years ago,
Speaker 4: walk in that meeting room and and my message was simple,
Speaker 4: as long as I'm the head coach, this is what
Speaker 4: this program's gonna be about. But then I also told them,
Speaker 4: and we're gonna graduate our players, We're gonna equip them
Speaker 4: as men. We're gonna we've now created this Paul Journey
Speaker 4: in our program. It's a curriculum. It's it's we've been
Speaker 4: doing this for a long time. It's we're gonna make
Speaker 4: sure they have a great experience. And I want everybody
Speaker 4: to win a championship. And as long as I'm the
Speaker 4: head coach, it's what we're gonna be about. Everything we're
Speaker 4: gonna do is and we'll be about that. But we're
Speaker 4: never gonna put winning ahead of those other things. So
Speaker 4: if that's your purpose, and you say your purpose driven,
Speaker 4: and you've got sixteen years, shouldn't the results reflect that.
Speaker 3: Yes, Well, we.
Speaker 4: Just posted the highest graduation success rate posted in twenty
Speaker 4: years of college football.
Speaker 3: We've got ninety eight percent graduation rate.
Speaker 4: I mean three hundred and ninety something seniors, three hundred
Speaker 4: and eighty nine graduates, you know. So, so we're fulfilling
Speaker 4: the graduate Thirteen out of the last fourteen years, we've
Speaker 4: been top ten academically, Clinton Duke in Northwestern and I
Speaker 4: don't think they've won national championships or conference championships. And
Speaker 4: then you sit there and you say, Okay, you know graduation,
Speaker 4: that's the number one thing in your program. Well, we're
Speaker 4: the only team in America one hundred and thirty five
Speaker 4: schools fourteen years in a row, top twenty five in
Speaker 4: football and academics. So we've kept the main thing the
Speaker 4: main thing, and then equipping them as men. Paul Journey's
Speaker 4: a curriculum. You'll see that college experience. We're topping the
Speaker 4: country in retention the past two years in this crazy
Speaker 4: free free agency world, topping the country and retention. So
Speaker 4: that means they're having an experience and then oh, by
Speaker 4: the way, winning a championship when I got the job,
Speaker 4: all right, Clemson hadn't won the ACC in twenty years,
Speaker 4: and that was an eight to ten team league. It's
Speaker 4: a seventeen team league. Now we've won it eight out
Speaker 4: of ten years. We've won it nine times. We're nine
Speaker 4: and won the championship game we had. Clempton hadn't won
Speaker 4: ten games in twenty years. We've won ten games thirteen
Speaker 4: out of the last fourteen years. But we've done it
Speaker 4: by being purpose driven.
Speaker 1: So can you talk about you obviously set the purpose
Speaker 1: for the but how do you help the young men
Speaker 1: set their own purpose for their life to create not
Speaker 1: just great football players, but great husbands, great fathers, great sons,
Speaker 1: and everything else that they'll be in their life.
Speaker 3: That's what we do best, and that is a part
Speaker 3: of the purpose.
Speaker 4: That is equipping them as men and not just being
Speaker 4: a guy that can run around, throw a ball, sack
Speaker 4: a quarterback. You know, teach them the proper place for football.
Speaker 4: We teach them that football can't be the foundation of
Speaker 4: your life. You know, we're faith based here. We talk
Speaker 4: about that there's opportunity for them to grow, but we
Speaker 4: truly through Paul Journey, our Paul Journey program. It is
Speaker 4: a curriculum. It's what we do for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors.
Speaker 4: This is how we teach them, you know, how to
Speaker 4: be great men, how to be great husbands. It's financial literacy,
Speaker 4: it's tax education, it's micro internships across the world. It's
Speaker 4: service abroad trips to Cape Town, South Africa, to Thailand,
Speaker 4: to Costa Rica. They're going to Positano, Italy in May.
Speaker 4: It's BusinessWeek, been in La the past couple of years.
Speaker 4: They're going to Vegas next week.
Speaker 3: You know. We we invest in them holistically. So that's
Speaker 3: it's how we meet. It's it's how we meet. There's
Speaker 3: there's not a meeting.
Speaker 4: There's not a meeting that we have ever where we're
Speaker 4: not sowing in the seeds of competitive greatness to life,
Speaker 4: not just football. So it's just a holistic approach. It's
Speaker 4: what we do daily, every single day. And we try
Speaker 4: to transform them through their Paul Journey because they all
Speaker 4: come into a certain spot and it's our job to
Speaker 4: figure out where they are, meet them where they are,
Speaker 4: and then and then transform their lives. So we we
Speaker 4: like to say We're a leadership development organization.
Speaker 3: We just happen to play football doing it. That's that's
Speaker 3: what we do best.
Speaker 1: So when you're when they're on that Paul journey and
Speaker 1: you're looking at what they're going to be out out
Speaker 1: in life, I look at your journey right. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because I think that you can understand people once
Speaker 1: you understand their backstory in life. You were a kid
Speaker 1: who was dirt poor, Ye, parents divorced, all that. So
Speaker 1: how did all of those things shape your life to
Speaker 1: be the man of purpose that you are now?
Speaker 4: Yeah, We're all shaped by our circumstances, by the things
Speaker 4: we experienced, people in our life, mentors, all those things.
Speaker 4: And I'm no different. But you know my I did.
Speaker 4: I just thought my life was normal until I knew
Speaker 4: it wasn't normal. But my family was simple. My mom
Speaker 4: and dad married at eighteen. My mom was pregnant with
Speaker 4: my oldest brother. Mom cut hair, Dad was an appliance man.
Speaker 3: Picks Washington drivers.
Speaker 4: That's what I grew up doing, you know, addiction in
Speaker 4: the home, divorce, you know, on the move, just staying here,
Speaker 4: staying there. But I had great coaches, I had great
Speaker 4: mentors in my life. You know, I was involved in
Speaker 4: a lot of things, you know, and you know, played
Speaker 4: three sports and did a lot of things that kind
Speaker 4: of kept me focused. But the main thing that happened
Speaker 4: to me is I got saved when I was sixteen,
Speaker 4: and that that created a found to life for me.
Speaker 3: You know, so many people they.
Speaker 4: Don't have a foundation to life, and I got a
Speaker 4: foundation to life when I was sixteen, and I've been
Speaker 4: building on it ever since. And whether and as storms
Speaker 4: have come, as they come for all of us, you know,
Speaker 4: that foundation has allowed me to stay anchored. And storms
Speaker 4: are not always bad things too. Storms are good stuff too.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of times sometimes the storms, the worst
Speaker 4: storms are the good stuff that happens.
Speaker 3: In your life.
Speaker 4: You can get really off course and distracted by that.
Speaker 4: That's been my journey and that shaped me, that equip
Speaker 4: me when I now, when I look back, people see
Speaker 4: this version of me.
Speaker 3: But I've never forgotten where I've come from.
Speaker 4: I know who I am, I know who the people
Speaker 4: who've helped me get where I am.
Speaker 3: Most importantly, I know my savior.
Speaker 4: And I look back and a lot of people say
Speaker 4: we serve a god you can't see, but I see
Speaker 4: him when I look back, and I'm just thankful that,
Speaker 4: you know, I've been able to have peace and whatever
Speaker 4: I've dealt with in life, and that served me as
Speaker 4: I've gone. But as I look back, the things that
Speaker 4: I hated most in life, the things that were the liabilities,
Speaker 4: things that I was embarrassed by.
Speaker 3: What are my greatest assets?
Speaker 2: What are some of those things that you were mean?
Speaker 4: You know, you know, when you're a kid and your
Speaker 4: father shows up and you know, everybody knows he's an alcoholic,
Speaker 4: and or they nobody's there to see you score twenty
Speaker 4: four points in a game or score a touchdown, nobody's there,
Speaker 4: or you know, you have you're living with a friend
Speaker 4: sleeping on the floor and your girlfriend's got to come
Speaker 4: decorate his door because that's where.
Speaker 3: You don't have a home, or you don't have a car.
Speaker 4: You know, So those are things that as when you're
Speaker 4: going through those things as a kid, you know, you
Speaker 4: can you can be hardened by those things, you can
Speaker 4: be embarrassed by those things, you know, whatever, But those
Speaker 4: those are my greatest assets today because it gave me perspective,
Speaker 4: and that's it goes back to your original question, you know,
Speaker 4: on how I deal with all everything, whether it's good bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's perspective. It's keeping perspective.
Speaker 4: And the way I keep perspective is keeping my eyes
Speaker 4: on the Good Lord in the good and the bad.
Speaker 1: So you've been married for over thirty years now, going
Speaker 1: on thirty one. Yeah, first of all, congratulates it. In
Speaker 1: this business of college football, how do you stay married
Speaker 1: for this long and and how has your wife been
Speaker 1: a part of the program.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think it's got to be. It's got
Speaker 4: to you got to be team. It's got to be
Speaker 4: a partnership, and you gotta you gotta you know, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think it should be work and home. I
Speaker 4: think you you've got to involve your family and everything
Speaker 4: that you do. And that's been the best part about
Speaker 4: being the head coach, honestly, is I've been able to
Speaker 4: create what I always envisioned it should be. And I've
Speaker 4: been able to do that for my staff too. But
Speaker 4: you know, kath and I we met in the first
Speaker 4: grade and we started going together other than the sixth grade,
Speaker 4: and then.
Speaker 3: We started dating in high school when I.
Speaker 4: Could drive, so I'd drive her car, and then were
Speaker 4: you know, all through college and been married going on
Speaker 4: thirty one years.
Speaker 3: So you know, we just have been together.
Speaker 4: We're a team, and I think you've got to have
Speaker 4: everybody on the same page in this profession.
Speaker 3: And so she was with me my whole life.
Speaker 4: She comes from a different Everybody in her family's you know, PhDs, masters,
Speaker 4: their teachers.
Speaker 3: Cath was a teacher, or dad as a professor.
Speaker 4: And you know, that's why I always knew she was
Speaker 4: the right one, because she never judged me or or
Speaker 4: you know, she saw the potential in me. I'm the
Speaker 4: first college graduate in my family. Nobody in my family
Speaker 4: had a college degree, parents, grandparents, great great grandparents, and
Speaker 4: so that was a game changer for me, which is
Speaker 4: why I'm passionate about education. I went to Alabama when
Speaker 4: I was eighteen. I left when I was thirty one,
Speaker 4: and so who does that. So I saw a lot
Speaker 4: of guys that I played with, and I was still
Speaker 4: there when I was twenty eight, and now all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, you know, I saw the game use a
Speaker 4: lot of guys they didn't have to. And I always said,
Speaker 4: if I got a chance to be a head coach,
Speaker 4: and I really wanted to, I wanted to do it
Speaker 4: in a different way, and that's what we've been able
Speaker 4: to do here and that's why our purpose is what
Speaker 4: it is. But you have to have someone in life
Speaker 4: to do life with, and you know, Cas been that
Speaker 4: person for me.
Speaker 3: And so she's been there from.
Speaker 4: When I was a ga, you know and getting my
Speaker 4: MBA and never at home for two and a half
Speaker 4: years because I was either you know, at the office
Speaker 4: or in a classroom or whatever. To you know, watch
Speaker 4: just this journey that we've been on. Coached eight years
Speaker 4: at Alabama, head coach gets fired. Now I'm out of
Speaker 4: coaching for eighteen months. And then you know, when Clemson
Speaker 4: called and said, hey, you're interested in getting back and coaching,
Speaker 4: she was like she knew my heart and she said,
Speaker 4: let's go.
Speaker 3: Never lived any lived anywhere else at Alabama.
Speaker 4: So here we came in February three thinking well I
Speaker 4: would be here for a year or two and now
Speaker 4: I'm on my twenty third season.
Speaker 3: But it was God's plan.
Speaker 1: So that how much well, because I because I know
Speaker 1: that as a man, one of the greatest things that
Speaker 1: that gives me pride and joys to be able to
Speaker 1: take care of my my family, provide for my family.
Speaker 1: How does that make you feel that cath believed in you.
Speaker 1: Her family, I don't know whether they supported it or
Speaker 1: didn't at the time, but you made good on on.
Speaker 2: That for for her and for your family.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, our relationship was built on the right stuff, and
Speaker 4: I think that's that's, you know, the way it always was.
Speaker 4: And then as I went to college, and honestly, we
Speaker 4: made I never dreamed of coaching.
Speaker 3: I didn't have any desire to coach.
Speaker 4: I wanted to go make money, you know, and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna I had all these great plans and because I'd
Speaker 4: never made any money, and I had all these great plans.
Speaker 3: And her dad was so helpful to me.
Speaker 4: And you know, when we first got married, he would
Speaker 4: send us a check every month so that I could
Speaker 4: pay for my mom's rent because my mom lived with me, yeah,
Speaker 4: with me for three years of college. And then then
Speaker 4: we got married at two, and you know, he helped me.
Speaker 4: He'd give me a check every month to help me
Speaker 4: pay for my mom's rent. And so I was really
Speaker 4: driven to be successful. And when I say be successful,
Speaker 4: it's it's to be able to provide for my family,
Speaker 4: to be able to have a good job, to be
Speaker 4: able to have a great relationship, you know, with the Lord,
Speaker 4: and to be a good father, to be a good husband,
Speaker 4: and to whatever platform God was going to give me,
Speaker 4: to use it to goify him. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, next thing, I know, coach McCorvey,
Speaker 4: coach Stars, you know, asked me if I want to
Speaker 4: be a GA, and I'm like, well, so I'll get
Speaker 4: my NBA yeah, because I wanted to go run a hospital.
Speaker 4: I've got my degree in hospital administration and that was
Speaker 4: my plan. And so a week into coaching, it was
Speaker 4: like clarity of life, all of a sudden.
Speaker 3: I still love to play, I still love to compete.
Speaker 3: I love the game.
Speaker 4: The first time I had never been a part of team,
Speaker 4: we won the national championship my senior year and that
Speaker 4: spring I'm like, man, next thing, I know, I'm coaching,
Speaker 4: And so it was awesome.
Speaker 3: But the other thing that.
Speaker 4: And I tell people all the time, especially young coaches today,
Speaker 4: getting into coaching, because coaching wasn't that way in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety three the way it is now. In nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 4: you know, you had nine full time coaches and two
Speaker 4: gas and.
Speaker 3: Nobody made any money.
Speaker 4: The head coach made a little money, but you But
Speaker 4: we made a conscious decision, Kathy and I. She was
Speaker 4: going to teach school. She was a teacher, and I'm
Speaker 4: on coach football. And we knew we would make a
Speaker 4: good living, but we were never gonna you know, but
Speaker 4: we were so at peace with doing what we love
Speaker 4: to do. And I felt like it was what God
Speaker 4: called me to do. I really felt that, and I
Speaker 4: had that clarity. So I didn't get into coaching to
Speaker 4: make money. I got into coaching because it's what I
Speaker 4: love to do and I felt like I could impact
Speaker 4: people's lives and that was the best way to do it,
Speaker 4: and I wanted to be a part of team.
Speaker 3: Everything great in my life had come through team. Never.
Speaker 4: In fact, I took a big pay cut to come
Speaker 4: to Clemson from the job I had in the business world,
Speaker 4: and so I just I never chased money. I just chased,
Speaker 4: you know, my happiness and my passion. And you know,
Speaker 4: this just God's.
Speaker 3: Favor that we are where we are now.
Speaker 1: Say, I'm glad you brought that up, because that's something
Speaker 1: I think that people get confused about at times, right,
Speaker 1: because you're one of the highest paid head coaches in
Speaker 1: college football, and people and you know, people have their
Speaker 1: opinions about oh, well, he say he doesn't do it
Speaker 1: for the money, but he's one of the highest paid coaches.
Speaker 1: But when you talk about your purpose, like, that's the
Speaker 1: thing that clicks for me. But then there was some
Speaker 1: comments that you made a few years ago about you know,
Speaker 1: if players, if they get get paid, I'll go do
Speaker 1: something else. And in understanding your backstory, I feel like
Speaker 1: I have a better understanding of what you meant by that.
Speaker 2: But can you.
Speaker 4: Elaborate What I said was they if they professionalize college athletics, yeah,
Speaker 4: it doesn't become scholastic anymore. Okay, that's because I'm passionate
Speaker 4: about education. That's what I said. People have taken and
Speaker 4: they right. Ever, I have no problem with these guys.
Speaker 4: You know, they're basically their their rev share, the scholarship
Speaker 4: being enhanced, all those things, and it's never made sense
Speaker 4: to me that a kid can't go to his own
Speaker 4: camp or stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I worked all through college.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've cleaning gunters, cutting grass. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: I probably wasn't supposed to, but I wouldn't have made
Speaker 4: it impiring. There was never a time that I wasn't
Speaker 4: working but what I know is we have a responsibility
Speaker 4: to educate our young people. Ninety eight percent of college
Speaker 4: players do not play in the NFL. Football is not
Speaker 4: a game of longevity, all right, and we have to
Speaker 4: emphasize and incentivize education.
Speaker 3: People make up their own stuff.
Speaker 4: And you know it's say whatever they want. But these
Speaker 4: are people that don't know me, They don't know our program.
Speaker 4: All you got, dudes, look at our program. Judge me
Speaker 4: by my fruit, you know, Judge me by the fruit
Speaker 4: of this program and the kids that have come through
Speaker 4: here and the graduates and the live that have been changed.
Speaker 3: So we've lived out our purpose.
Speaker 4: My main thing about college football is, you know, we
Speaker 4: have to keep it scholastic.
Speaker 3: We have to. We have to keep it scholastic, and
Speaker 3: we have to help these kids.
Speaker 4: You know, seventy eight percent, almost seventy eight percent of
Speaker 4: NFL players within two years of being out a league
Speaker 4: or bankrupt. Yep, you know that bankrupt and most of
Speaker 4: them right. So I've never wanted my guys to be
Speaker 4: a statistic like that. You think we're gonna get those
Speaker 4: are mid twenties to thirty year olds. You think we're
Speaker 4: going to get a different result with an eighteen nineteen
Speaker 4: twenty year old. Now it's gonna be worse, especially if
Speaker 4: we don't have the right structure that emphasizes education.
Speaker 3: And we have to graduate these players.
Speaker 4: And if we do it right, it's the greatest time
Speaker 4: in the history of football to go to college because
Speaker 4: we have a chance to educate and equip these young people,
Speaker 4: teach them financial literacy, tax education. They don't have to
Speaker 4: wait until they get to the Pros to know with
Speaker 4: a W two or ten ninety nine or anything kindie
Speaker 4: is we can truly equip them, so, you know, and
Speaker 4: then also when they come out of college. You know
Speaker 4: a lot of these kids in the past that might
Speaker 4: leave early, they'll stay now and they'll graduate. And then
Speaker 4: if and then and then when they come out of college,
Speaker 4: if we do it right, they whether they make the
Speaker 4: Pros or not, they've got a great foundation financially for
Speaker 4: life to set them up on a great head.
Speaker 3: Start for life.
Speaker 4: No matter how much money you make in college, it's
Speaker 4: not it's not going to last forever. And so there's
Speaker 4: this perception out there and so we have to we
Speaker 4: just have to. We just have to do it in
Speaker 4: a scholastic way and not get away from that. And
Speaker 4: that's what I've always believed. And the reason I believe
Speaker 4: that is because I know that if, if, if, if
Speaker 4: these young people get their degree, then they have it's
Speaker 4: not and you don't have to have a degree to
Speaker 4: be successful in life. There's a lot of things. There's
Speaker 4: there's there's trades, there's a lot of things that you
Speaker 4: can do to be very successful. But the statistics and
Speaker 4: the odds and the data says that you have a
Speaker 4: better opportunity and that you will make more money in
Speaker 4: the course of your life if you do have an education.
Speaker 4: I think that's important. I mean, like, I love Deon Sanders.
Speaker 4: He's one of my heroes growing up. You know, what
Speaker 4: a shame if he couldn't go do that job. He
Speaker 4: couldn't be the head coach he didn't have his degree.
Speaker 2: Rights yep.
Speaker 4: And he's not coaching for money. He's coaching because he
Speaker 4: loves to teach. He knows and he sees where he
Speaker 4: can impact people's lives, especially for you.
Speaker 3: Know, for the kingdom.
Speaker 4: He sees that, he knows that he's called to that,
Speaker 4: and man, what a shame if he didn't have that degree.
Speaker 4: Wouldn't matter how many Hall of fames he was in.
Speaker 4: How many of this stuff he wouldn't be qualified to
Speaker 4: go do that? And so I think that's important. And
Speaker 4: that's that's what I think sometimes gets lost that you're
Speaker 4: playing football at twenty seven, twenty.
Speaker 2: Eight year old.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I finished it right before I turned thirty,
Speaker 1: and I remember coming out and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what I was going to do. And it's a journey
Speaker 1: TI to have that sort of mentorship leadership with you
Speaker 1: guys as this platform, I think.
Speaker 4: Is there's a transition. And what we try to teach
Speaker 4: in paul journey is we teach these guys to transition
Speaker 4: from football before they ever have to transition from football.
Speaker 3: And you know what that does. That frees them up
Speaker 3: just to go play.
Speaker 1: But coach, I thought, I thought that that if you're
Speaker 1: focusing or you're paying attention to anything except football, then
Speaker 1: you're not focused on the main thing.
Speaker 4: Now, football is not the main thing. It's it's it's
Speaker 4: it's the type of young men that were developed. It's
Speaker 4: the thirty year old version of these men. That's the
Speaker 4: main thing.
Speaker 3: What are we doing? How are we serving their heart?
Speaker 3: If football is the main thing, you.
Speaker 4: Just serving their talent We're here to serve their heart,
Speaker 4: not their talent. All right, We're here to We're here
Speaker 4: here truly to build transformational leaders through the through the
Speaker 4: platform of football. That's that's Football is important, but it's
Speaker 4: but it needs to be right here with the risks
Speaker 4: above the elbow and six points and five points of
Speaker 4: pressure and the offhand with that six point of pressure
Speaker 4: right there.
Speaker 3: It's not it's not.
Speaker 4: Shouldn't be the foundation, and it is for somebody, for
Speaker 4: a lot of people, and that's fine. Everybody has to
Speaker 4: do things the way they want to do them.
Speaker 3: I'm not judging. I don't judge anybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just focus on what we do and what's
Speaker 4: best for Clemson and fulfilling the purpose that I've been
Speaker 4: called to live out.
Speaker 1: So as we get to like this era of college football,
Speaker 1: there's the transfer portal, which I've noticed the statistics say
Speaker 1: that less and less players.
Speaker 2: Are graduating now because of the transfer portal.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that you've been criticized about
Speaker 1: is not taking enough transfer portal players. And initially I
Speaker 1: was in that camp, but then I thought about it.
Speaker 2: I would say, hold up, hold up. This feels like.
Speaker 1: A coach who's to use a term that people use
Speaker 1: now standing on business, that you hold your coaches to
Speaker 1: a higher calling of Listen, you got to get your
Speaker 1: recruiting right and you got to develop these players. Is
Speaker 1: that what the mentality or the coaching of you know
Speaker 1: what you're coaching your coaches or the expectation for your
Speaker 1: coaches is.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's two ways to be successful.
Speaker 4: You can do what everybody else does and just try
Speaker 4: to outwork them out smart on this and that, or
Speaker 4: you can be unique and different.
Speaker 3: We've been unique and different for sixteen years.
Speaker 4: I mean, just like again, everybody's got a lot of opinions,
Speaker 4: but anybody ever talks about facts.
Speaker 3: The facts are now that Nick.
Speaker 4: Saban's gone, We've won more games than sixteen years than
Speaker 4: anybody in the country. And I got the most draft picks,
Speaker 4: got the most first round picks in the past sixteen years,
Speaker 4: never had a number one recruiting class. We're like usually
Speaker 4: average about thirteen. But we've beaten Alabama in two out
Speaker 4: of three national championships. We've been to seven out of
Speaker 4: ten playoffs, we've been to won the league eight out
Speaker 4: of the last ten years.
Speaker 3: So why do I want to be like everybody else.
Speaker 4: We got the highest graduation rate in America. We got
Speaker 4: the best retention in the country. So why do I
Speaker 4: feel this need. I'm not against the portal, but when
Speaker 4: you have the highest retention rates in the country, that
Speaker 4: means kids in highest graduation rates, kids are staying. So
Speaker 4: this is not a release Probram. This is not a
Speaker 4: place where we're gonna run guys off. We're at the
Speaker 4: bottom in the class of twenty six and offers right now,
Speaker 4: fewest offers, but we've offered like sixty one guys and
Speaker 4: at the top will be like five hundred and something.
Speaker 4: Whoever's first up there, I've got a list of it.
Speaker 4: You know, we don't offer many guys. We don't offer
Speaker 4: freshmen and sophomores. I won't offer anybody that won't come here.
Speaker 4: You know, like we value who we know exactly what
Speaker 4: we're looking for. We're unique and we're different in our approach.
Speaker 4: But that's not to judge other people. That's what's worked
Speaker 4: for us. Who's won more national championships, who's been to
Speaker 4: more playoffs, who's won more conference championship, and who's had
Speaker 4: more draft picks and first round picks.
Speaker 3: Nobody in the past.
Speaker 4: Now the Knick's gone nobody nobody, So who's got graduate who?
Speaker 4: We're fulfilling our purpose and we're not worried about what
Speaker 4: other people do. We're just trying to be the best
Speaker 4: version of Clemson and do what's best for Clemson. And
Speaker 4: that's what we've done, and so we're not against the portal.
Speaker 4: We've used the portal three out of four years. Nobody
Speaker 4: wants to talk about it that we've used it for.
Speaker 4: It's a great tool. It's a great tool. If I
Speaker 4: left today and took a job somewhere, half the team
Speaker 4: would leaves. Yeah, well, you can't go sign forty freshmen.
Speaker 4: You got to go build a team. I don't judge anybody.
Speaker 4: Everybody's situation is different, but our retention is pretty unique.
Speaker 4: And the reason it's so high is our process on
Speaker 4: the front end, and so we're getting the best high
Speaker 4: school kids that we think.
Speaker 3: So again, if we're if.
Speaker 4: Our Alabama, they've been number one about every year in recruiting,
Speaker 4: but we beat them in two out of three national championships,
Speaker 4: and if it wasn't for an on side kick, would
Speaker 4: have beat them three out of three forty five forty
Speaker 4: So I mean the last one we won. They had
Speaker 4: eighteen first rounders. We had eight and we beat them
Speaker 4: forty four to sixteen. You win with people, you win
Speaker 4: with synergy close to two plus two weekals ten. So
Speaker 4: you got to get the people part right. So portal wise,
Speaker 4: you know, we just as long as we're getting the
Speaker 4: best high school kids. So like this past year we
Speaker 4: signed three, but we didn't have a choice. And everybody
Speaker 4: has to use the portal now because if you have
Speaker 4: kids even the spring, and that hasn't been the case
Speaker 4: for us. Yeah, if you have kids leave in the spring,
Speaker 4: who you gonna go get in made? There's no high
Speaker 4: school kids yep. But it just hasn't been our situation.
Speaker 4: And that's just goes back to our process, our relationship.
Speaker 1: So what what is that process of finding Clemsing men
Speaker 1: or they what will be Clemson men.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you've got to be a lot more just
Speaker 4: good football players, a lot of good football players. You
Speaker 4: got to you know, we're looking for your character, your academics,
Speaker 4: We're looking for those intangibles as a guy love football,
Speaker 4: you know, and then again we want to force semester transcript.
Speaker 3: Can you play a couple of years of varsity football?
Speaker 3: Is that too much to ask?
Speaker 4: You know, like the reason you see all these these
Speaker 4: you know, some of the schools signing thirty guys a year,
Speaker 4: but look how many guys are leaving their program. So
Speaker 4: it's it's just kind of catching release or it's just
Speaker 4: you know, transactional, and that's not who we are. We're
Speaker 4: there's a transaction in today's football, but kids aren't coming
Speaker 4: here because of that. They're coming here because they really
Speaker 4: align with who we are and they're staying here. You
Speaker 4: don't think Peter was and TJ. Parker and Katy you
Speaker 4: don't think these guys could go in the portal and
Speaker 4: get sure, they could, but they're happy.
Speaker 3: And so you know that's.
Speaker 4: What people You don't hear anything bad about Clemson from
Speaker 4: inside Clemson. It's always from people on the outside of
Speaker 4: our program. They don't know me, they don't know our program.
Speaker 4: So you know, again, we've won the most games, got
Speaker 4: the most national championships, most conference championships, most draft picks,
Speaker 4: most first round picks, highest graduation rate. So I think
Speaker 4: our process.
Speaker 3: Is fulfilling our purpose.
Speaker 4: If it's not fulfilling somebody else's purpose, well I'm not
Speaker 4: trying to fulfill somebody else's purpose.
Speaker 1: You've had a lot of continuity of coaches as well.
Speaker 2: And I remember when I went to Oregon it was
Speaker 2: kind of like.
Speaker 1: That with Mike Bellotti until Mark Helfrid was fired. Then
Speaker 1: everybody like you had Don Pelham who was on the
Speaker 1: staff for a long time, Coach Campbell, all of these coaches.
Speaker 1: How is it important for you know, a guy like
Speaker 1: Woody who you was your wide receiver coach and has
Speaker 1: now been with you this entire time.
Speaker 4: It's nineteen ninety, uh, you know, and then ironically he
Speaker 4: came from Clemson to be my receiver coach at Alabama
Speaker 4: and you know, he's he's been one of the top
Speaker 4: two or three mentors in my life.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's like a father to me.
Speaker 4: He's been with me from you know, day one that
Speaker 4: I got this job, and uh, you know, just just
Speaker 4: one of the great blessings. You know, God puts people
Speaker 4: in our lives along the way that that are, you know,
Speaker 4: just rocks in your life, and that's who he's been.
Speaker 4: So it's been awesome, I mean, to do life with
Speaker 4: coach mccorby has been you know.
Speaker 3: Just amazing.
Speaker 4: To meet him when I was twenty, you know as
Speaker 4: a young red shirt sophomore at Alabama, and and you know,
Speaker 4: I don't get a scholarship if it's not for him.
Speaker 4: He believed in me as a young at a young
Speaker 4: age and mentored me and had a great experience playing
Speaker 4: for him, and then and then I was a GA
Speaker 4: for him, and then when he became the offensive coordinator.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm twenty six years old coaching receivers and
Speaker 4: tight ends at Alabama's.
Speaker 3: Youngest assistant in the SEC.
Speaker 4: I mean, twenty six And that doesn't happen if it's
Speaker 4: not for coach mccorby and coach Stallings, who really believed
Speaker 4: in me and gave me that opportunity. So you know,
Speaker 4: I had no idea what was down the road, but
Speaker 4: man to going on my seventeenth year as the head
Speaker 4: coach here and for Woody to be right by my side.
Speaker 3: It's been It's been awesome to do life with him.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Jene Stallings, and that reminds me of a
Speaker 1: story that I heard about you, is that when you
Speaker 1: were playing at Alabama that he was calling for more
Speaker 1: physicality in practice. And there is a famous crackback blocking
Speaker 1: by by mister Devils.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were just scrimmaging, and you know, I mean
Speaker 4: the game was different then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 4: Was like if you didn't do that in those days,
Speaker 4: you know, you were going to the you're getting to
Speaker 4: you're going to the bench, and uh you know, and
Speaker 4: as a receiver, you you sought those type of opportunities out,
Speaker 4: you know, but they've taken blind side blocks and back backs.
Speaker 3: That's all out of the game now. But in those days,
Speaker 3: that was just it was just part of it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were having a scrimmage my sophomore year, actually
Speaker 4: it was my junior year ninety one, and just we
Speaker 4: ran a reverse with Kevin Lee.
Speaker 3: Uh and so I was the X and he was
Speaker 3: the Z.
Speaker 4: And we ran a reverse and so you know, everything
Speaker 4: was flowing and and uh man, we had a safety
Speaker 4: and I mean, I'm coming full speed and I got
Speaker 4: I got a beat on him, and I mean as
Speaker 4: soon as he recognized this reverse and he starts, and
Speaker 4: I mean, just it was it was it was a
Speaker 4: pretty explosive hit. And you know, of course, you know
Speaker 4: back in those days, that's where again everybody went crazy
Speaker 4: and it was this and that was a part of
Speaker 4: the game and so yeah, that was. It was like
Speaker 4: the headline of the news the next day, so it
Speaker 4: was it was a physical scrimmage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that reminds me of a play that when I
Speaker 1: was in college, when I was at Oregon, Wesley Mallard
Speaker 1: hit Michael Jolivette when we were playing again. We were
Speaker 1: playing in onto the Stadium against Arizona Punk return and
Speaker 1: Keenan out of Keeny Howery starts one way, breaks back
Speaker 1: the other way, going towards the right. I'm standing on
Speaker 1: the sideline at about the fifty yard line and Wesley
Speaker 1: hit some helmet pops off areas, probably the hardest hit
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in my whole life.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, he'd be throwing to jail
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah is that where? Yeah you'd be gone? Yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah for sure.
Speaker 2: And in college football now right.
Speaker 1: Like you talk about education and graduating players, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I found problems with and other coaches
Speaker 1: have as well, is the calendar is that the transfer
Speaker 1: portal opens up in December, but then if you play
Speaker 1: for a national championship this year, you didn't finish until
Speaker 1: January twentieth, so classes are already started again. What's the
Speaker 1: fix to it, like, should the season in January first?
Speaker 2: Should what's your idea on that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think we definitely need to compress
Speaker 4: the calendar a little bit. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of a lot of things. That's a that's a deep conversation.
Speaker 4: Having lived it for a long time and having been
Speaker 4: in seven playoffs, six final fours, yeah, and four national championships,
Speaker 4: it's a long time to play, and it's a lot
Speaker 4: of games, and so you know, to play a potential
Speaker 4: of seventeen games. It's a lot in college football because
Speaker 4: it is scholastic and what you mentioned earlier graduation rates
Speaker 4: with the portal because what's happening is as these kids transferred,
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean your hours don't all of a sudden transfer.
Speaker 4: So you might be twenty hours away from graduating when
Speaker 4: you transfer and you go somewhere else and now you're
Speaker 4: forty five hours.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of things to consider there. I think,
Speaker 4: first of all, you know, I'm all for the kids
Speaker 4: being able to go.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 3: We need a new government structure, number one.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's you know, one of the reasons that we
Speaker 4: have such a chaotic time a mess right now is
Speaker 4: you know, forever and ever and ever, we've tried to
Speaker 4: make it all.
Speaker 3: The same and it's just not the same, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean at Clemson as it is.
Speaker 4: Some of these a small group of five or even
Speaker 4: a one double a because division one is division one
Speaker 4: and it's not and it's not the same sport to
Speaker 4: sport either. And I think we're finally at a place
Speaker 4: where people have realized that. And I think we're going
Speaker 4: to get a new government structure which can bring more autonomy,
Speaker 4: which which then you have like minded problems and people
Speaker 4: that can solve the problems that are relevant to them in.
Speaker 3: Their world, because we do need that.
Speaker 4: So I think that's part of it. And then I
Speaker 4: think the next thing is we need to we need
Speaker 4: to look at the calendar. There's some adjustments that we
Speaker 4: need to make there. But you know, you know, having
Speaker 4: done it many times to ask these kids to start
Speaker 4: earlier and to play later and to practice more, play
Speaker 4: more games, it's a lot. And so man, it's lad
Speaker 4: that they're having opportunities with the rev share and all
Speaker 4: of that stuff is great.
Speaker 3: We just have to have some structure and that's.
Speaker 4: Coming, like we're about to enter in I think one
Speaker 4: of the best errors ever in college football. You know,
Speaker 4: because there is going to be some order, there is
Speaker 4: a cap, there is it's got to make sense. I
Speaker 4: think that all that's going to be good. I think
Speaker 4: the kids should be able to leave. But we don't
Speaker 4: need free agency right in the middle of the season.
Speaker 4: Nobody does that like it makes zero sense at all,
Speaker 4: and it puts the kids in a bad situation.
Speaker 3: I think we need five years for five years. Number one. Okay,
Speaker 3: we got all these waivers, we got all this stuff.
Speaker 3: I just think you should be able to play five years.
Speaker 4: Play five years that way, because when they put in
Speaker 4: the play four year, four games and you can keep it, well,
Speaker 4: the unintended consequence of that is now, all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: here comes the portal.
Speaker 3: Here's in il Well.
Speaker 4: Now kids are playing four games and they're saying, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm out.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to lose my eligibility.
Speaker 4: I'm going well, a lot of these kids would play
Speaker 4: if they're if it's five for five, and you know,
Speaker 4: if you played four games, you played seven, you played
Speaker 4: them all.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter five years.
Speaker 4: And especially with the financial opportunity now, a lot of
Speaker 4: these kids that are in a hurry to go pro
Speaker 4: would stay in college and they would graduate.
Speaker 3: So now we've been centivized education.
Speaker 4: We've been centivized graduation because why you make more money
Speaker 4: in college than going to be in a fifth or
Speaker 4: sixth rounder in the pros, and and and it's more guaranteed,
Speaker 4: and you're fin you're developing, you're playing, you're getting your degrees,
Speaker 4: all those things. I think that's a part of it.
Speaker 4: But we need one portal window. I don't care where
Speaker 4: it is. There's a lot of debate.
Speaker 3: Is it January, is it February, is it March? Whatever?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: I mean personally, I think, you know, we should give
Speaker 4: these kids the opportunity. Like every if you look at
Speaker 4: the final four the past few everybody's had kids opt
Speaker 4: out because they feel this pressure.
Speaker 2: And you shouldn't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you feel this pressure because kids are like, oh,
Speaker 4: I got to get there in January. So I think
Speaker 4: one fix for that is we need to change how
Speaker 4: spring practice is done.
Speaker 3: Spring practice is important, though all this chatter and chit chat.
Speaker 4: These guys have played all these yeah, some guys have,
Speaker 4: but most of these kids have it.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: In college is developmental, Like if you get to the pros. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you can have a bunch of OTA's and it's that.
Speaker 4: But y'all got four preseason games to figure it out
Speaker 4: to go play some football.
Speaker 3: We don't get that in college.
Speaker 4: When we play, we play LSU, and so we don't
Speaker 4: we don't get preseason games.
Speaker 3: We don't get jamborees, we don't get.
Speaker 4: It's the only level of football that you know, we
Speaker 4: don't get a practice against anybody else.
Speaker 3: We only have each other to compete against each other.
Speaker 4: And so college, I like, when we get kids at Clemson,
Speaker 4: it's the first time in their life that they've had
Speaker 4: a peer. Like my left tackle Brandon Jacob's son, Braden
Speaker 4: Jacobs just got here, who's six seven three and thirty pounds.
Speaker 3: Let me just tell you something.
Speaker 4: He's never had a peer at practice or on Friday
Speaker 4: night maybe every blue moon, he might play against somebody.
Speaker 4: So now he's got Peter Woods and teach every day TJ. Parker,
Speaker 4: and he's got dudes every day, and so he needs
Speaker 4: to develop. He needs to learn how his stance and
Speaker 4: fund how do you pull on a counter? How do
Speaker 4: we do those things? At this level at the pros,
Speaker 4: it's not developmental. If you don't know how to win
Speaker 4: on a slant versus inside leverage. At the next level,
Speaker 4: they just bring somebody.
Speaker 3: In who can.
Speaker 4: If you don't know how to pull on the counter
Speaker 4: that you don't know how to spill a guy, they
Speaker 4: bring somebody in who can.
Speaker 3: You're a pro.
Speaker 4: And these kids have spent their career playing college ball
Speaker 4: at a high level. All right, So the kids, we
Speaker 4: get what what received? What corner has walked up on
Speaker 4: westco TJ. Moore and like me and you all night
Speaker 4: on Friday night.
Speaker 3: Never all right?
Speaker 4: So now he's got Abon Terrell, he's got Ashton Hampton,
Speaker 4: He's got he's got. So college has to be developmental.
Speaker 4: So my point in that is, I think we need
Speaker 4: to look at spring practice. We just need to say,
Speaker 4: you know what, everybody gets twenty days. Everybody's calendar is different.
Speaker 4: Some re quarters, some are semesters. Some people start earlier
Speaker 4: in January, some people start later in January. Some people
Speaker 4: are out early May, some people are out mid May. Whatever,
Speaker 4: why don't we just some people don't sign a lot
Speaker 4: of portal guys.
Speaker 3: Some people sign all portal guys.
Speaker 4: And the portal problem is okay, well, they want them
Speaker 4: there for spring ball kids want to get there, So
Speaker 4: why don't we just say, you know what, you get
Speaker 4: twenty days from March one or whatever, late February through June.
Speaker 3: Do it however you want.
Speaker 4: So that way, if you want to sign a bunch
Speaker 4: of portal guys, if we're going to make the window
Speaker 4: in April or whatever, then you get a bunch of
Speaker 4: kids in May. Well, those kids have an op they
Speaker 4: can they'll stay in school, they can continue their academic course,
Speaker 4: they can make a good decision, and then they can
Speaker 4: they can get there and they can have spring practice
Speaker 4: in May and June to get acclimated, to get ready.
Speaker 3: And so I think, you know you can.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of things we can do to fix it,
Speaker 4: but we definitely need one portal window for sure, and
Speaker 4: we need to create an opportunity for these kids to
Speaker 4: be able to finish. Now, you got some coaches out there,
Speaker 4: they're like, well, I don't want these guys around for
Speaker 4: a semester.
Speaker 3: I don't think that's the right mentality. But to each
Speaker 3: his own, you know.
Speaker 4: That's why I was like, why don't we make it
Speaker 4: end of January first of February, And so what if
Speaker 4: we got some guys that are going for at least
Speaker 4: they can finish school, yep, and we know what our
Speaker 4: roster is in the off season, in the spring practice,
Speaker 4: and then we can address that, you know, with kids
Speaker 4: in May, and then we can do our spring practice. Hey,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna save these practices in May, these practice in Junie.
Speaker 4: We can get on the field with these kids.
Speaker 1: So it feels like there's been a return to, like
Speaker 1: players talking about their face right and being more open
Speaker 1: about it. You saw this year with Ohio State with
Speaker 1: some of their players and some of the fans were like,
Speaker 1: stop talking about God, like focus on football. And I
Speaker 1: believe that those things are interconnected like that you talked about.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that?
Speaker 1: Is it just a feeling that it is a more
Speaker 1: return to people being more vocal about whatever their faith is,
Speaker 1: or do you believe that that it's.
Speaker 2: Been going on the exact same the whole time.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's a fate's a personal decision.
Speaker 4: I think it's always been a part of certainly always
Speaker 4: been a part of my life and what I've done,
Speaker 4: And I mean probably for most I just think you
Speaker 4: probably have seen people be more vocal about it. You know,
Speaker 4: we live in a world now that where there's constant
Speaker 4: you know, and kids see things or whatever, and so
Speaker 4: I mean, I love it though, I mean it's great.
Speaker 4: I mean, but for me, I mean, it's always been
Speaker 4: a part of what we do. I've never shot away
Speaker 4: from that. Again, I've always said, it's not my job
Speaker 4: to save people, you know, my job is to win
Speaker 4: football games.
Speaker 3: I get that.
Speaker 4: But I do think it's my responsibility as a Christian
Speaker 4: and as a person of fate to live my life
Speaker 4: in a way and hopefully be a great example and
Speaker 4: be a light, you know. And that's that's really what
Speaker 4: I try to do. And I know I get judged
Speaker 4: by that by other people, but you know, that's just
Speaker 4: part of it comes with it.
Speaker 1: Thirteen out of the last fourteen years, Clemson has won
Speaker 1: at least ten football games. A lot of twelve win
Speaker 1: football games along the way, which is very difficult to
Speaker 1: do because in the era of the college football playoff
Speaker 1: eleven years, there's only been six teams to win at
Speaker 1: least six games every single year, and Clemson is one
Speaker 1: of them. Why do you schedule the way that you
Speaker 1: do when other people are trying to get as many
Speaker 1: easy games as possible this year. You start out with LSU,
Speaker 1: you could put anybody else on the schedule and then
Speaker 1: still have your South Carolina game. Why are you doing
Speaker 1: that when other people are shying away from that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's how we built the program. That's what
Speaker 4: I've done from day one. When I got this job, again,
Speaker 4: we had won ten games in twenty years. We hadn't
Speaker 4: won the ACC in twenty years. Much let's think about
Speaker 4: a national championship. And I met with the ad and
Speaker 4: I'm like, look, here's what I think we need to do.
Speaker 3: The only way.
Speaker 4: I mean, I spent thirteen years at Alabama, so you know,
Speaker 4: that was my background. I've only been at two schools,
Speaker 4: and so that was my background of you know, how
Speaker 4: do you how do you you need? We need to
Speaker 4: compete and I need to teach these guys. And the
Speaker 4: only way I'm going to teach these guys and prepare
Speaker 4: these guys is, man, we got to go play people.
Speaker 4: And yeah, you know, and I've had a lot of
Speaker 4: conversations about that over the years. Yeah, I mean, like,
Speaker 4: you know, you played George last year six nothing at
Speaker 4: the half of the battle, didn't have a great third quarter.
Speaker 3: Those games are hard. They're great when you win, but
Speaker 3: they're hard.
Speaker 4: But I just believe in totality, you know, for what's
Speaker 4: right for the long term of your program and teaching. Guys,
Speaker 4: we only play this game six percent of the time.
Speaker 4: The other ninety four percent, you're preparing, you're practicing your training,
Speaker 4: you're lifting weights, you're doing football life with each other.
Speaker 4: And that's what I've always believed is an advantage for us.
Speaker 4: Here is who we practice against every day, iron sharpened
Speaker 4: and iron like. It's prepared us for those moments. But
Speaker 4: there's nothing that prepares you more than from feeling it,
Speaker 4: breathing the air, you know, seeing it. And so I've
Speaker 4: just always believed that we got to play ten. Let's
Speaker 4: play ten power five opponents. And that's been my philosophy
Speaker 4: from day one. Let's play ten all ends, all right,
Speaker 4: and then let's play one group of five. And you know,
Speaker 4: like we we scheduled at last year, I'm like, why
Speaker 4: are we scheduled? And this year I got Troy, I'm like,
Speaker 4: why are we can we not find somebody in Troy
Speaker 4: is like the two of the best group of fives.
Speaker 3: But but we we played.
Speaker 4: Ten all ends a group of five and then I've
Speaker 4: always believed in playing one FCS school in our state.
Speaker 4: It's great for the state, it's great for everybody. So
Speaker 4: that's been our philosophy from day one, and that's how
Speaker 4: we've built our program. And if you look at the
Speaker 4: trajectory of our Clemson again, we've nobody's won more games.
Speaker 4: I mean, Alabama has won more games in the past
Speaker 4: sixteen years, but Nick's gone.
Speaker 3: So let's just let's just start it right there.
Speaker 4: Clemson most wins, most championships, and I think a big
Speaker 4: part of that is who you practice against every day,
Speaker 4: how you practice, how you meet, how you recruit, how
Speaker 4: you Again, we averaged thirteen point six in my recruiting classes,
Speaker 4: all right, but we got the most draft picks, most
Speaker 4: first round picks. So we've evaluated well, we've developed well,
Speaker 4: we've retained well, and we've played the best of the
Speaker 4: best in the playoff air. I mean, we've beaten Auburn
Speaker 4: four in a row. We've beaten Texas A and M
Speaker 4: two in a row. We've beaten Oklahoma two in a row.
Speaker 4: We were three and one against Ohio State since I've
Speaker 4: been the head coach, was four and two against Notre
Speaker 4: Dame and Notre Dame prints their own money, makes their
Speaker 4: own rules, got their own world right, and one of
Speaker 4: those losses was double overtime at their place without Trevor Lawrence.
Speaker 4: All Right, we've beaten Alabama. We're two and one in
Speaker 4: national championships against Alabama. You know, we've played all these people.
Speaker 4: We've beaten Georgia, We've beaten LSU. We've lost to them too.
Speaker 4: We've I don't know, we've won eight out of the
Speaker 4: last ten against South Carolina.
Speaker 3: We have.
Speaker 4: We've played a lot of people, and I think that's healthy.
Speaker 4: Obviously we've played in the championship games. But we just
Speaker 4: set a record this year. We actually broke wrong record
Speaker 4: fourteen consecutive years with a postseason win. That's never been
Speaker 4: done in college football history. Nobody's even close. The next
Speaker 4: closest team is I think they got six postseason wins.
Speaker 4: We've had fourteen consecutive years where they postseason win and
Speaker 4: with our trajectory, that means you're in championship games, you're
Speaker 4: in playoffs, big bowl games. I mean, we've played a
Speaker 4: lot of people. That's incredible. And you mentioned the ten
Speaker 4: with fourteen straight years, we've had nine plus wins and
Speaker 4: everybody goes, oh, nine plus wins, Well, that's happened four
Speaker 4: times in one hundred and sixty years of football. Nebraska
Speaker 4: with coach Osbond in the eighties, Alabama with Nick Saban,
Speaker 4: Florida State with coach Bowden in the late eighties and nineties,
Speaker 4: and now Clemson nine plus wins fourteen years. The consistency
Speaker 4: is our calling card at Clemson. We're not perfect, we
Speaker 4: don't do everything right, we don't make all the right decisions,
Speaker 4: but we're consistent and that's what drives everything in this program.
Speaker 1: And I was going to ask you why Clemson, but
Speaker 1: you answered that question right there, you guys. He is
Speaker 1: the head coach of the Clemson Tigers. Mister Dabo Sweeney,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining the show.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.