CHARLOTTE – Having been in Dabo Swinney’s locker room, former Clemson offensive lineman Eric Mac Lain knows as well as anyone how good the Tigers’ head coach is at playing the disrespect card and keeping his team motivated, playing with a chip on its shoulder.

Mac Lain, now with the ACC Network, spoke with the media Friday prior to Saturday’s ACC Championship Game in Charlotte and discussed Swinney’s rant following Clemson’s 38-3 win over South Carolina last Saturday.

Of course, Swinney made it clear he feels Clemson is disrespected nationally, saying some in the media don’t want to see the Tigers in the College Football Playoff.

“I think that Coach Swinney does a fantastic job of pulling things out at the right time,” Mac Lain said. “I think that he holds onto things, things that he sees throughout the entire season, maybe even things that were said in preseason and he thought that was the right time to bring it out. When you look at this Clemson team, what they were able to do against South Carolina — total domination there — then you have a Georgia team that loses to them, and the next week all that we heard about was how can Georgia still be in the playoff? So, he was waiting on that for a long time, and I think he got his opportunity and brought it up.

“So, when he feels that his team is being discounted, discredited for this historical run that they’re on and feels any type of disrespect, he’s going to step up and stand up for those guys, and I think the fire that we’re going to see from them because of that is going to be fantastic.”

Mac Lain, who played at Clemson from 2011-15, described Swinney as a “master manipulator.”

The former team captain and first-team All-ACC selection believes the media is feeding Swinney exactly the kind of bulletin board material he wants.

“The good thing is, he doesn’t have to create that,” Mac Lain said. “People are giftwrapping it and hand to him. It’s almost funny the amnesia that the national media seem to have … It wasn’t a couple of weeks ago that everybody was discounting Clemson. All we heard was this isn’t a playoff team, last year’s wins don’t matter anymore. Now all the sudden they’re the greatest team ever. So, I think it’s interesting that all offseason, all I heard was how does Dabo keep playing this underdog card, and I would say is well you give it to him, you let him do it. So, I think that’s kind of the case.

“Again, he’s been a underdog his whole life. That’s what he’s had to do. He’s comfortable in that position. To create that chip on his shoulder is something that he’s very comfortable with that he can directly give to those guys, and he’s going to do it. Anything that he can use in the media to give them more juice, he’s going to.”

As for the SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum’s recent comments about Swinney, calling him “the most annoying winner in all of sports” and saying someone needs to “send him to timeout” with a pacifier, Mac Lain thinks Swinney handled those attacks well.

Swinney took the high road during his press conference Tuesday and said Finebaum is great at what he does, adding that he “would never be upset at a person because he does a great job.”

“At the end of the day Coach Swinney commended him doing his job well,” Mac Lain said. “That’s what he’s there for, to get people’s attention, to spark conversation, and I thought Coach Swinney did a great job of the way he handled that.”

During his response to Finebaum, Swinney mentioned Mac Lain and said somebody needs to get him on ESPN’s signature shows so he can be a voice for the ACC and fight for the league.

“I agree with him. Let’s go!” Mac Lain said with a smile. “I think that it was cool, number one, to see that. I’ve got to give him his check for saying that and throwing my name out there. But it would be good to have somebody who is an ‘expert’ on the conference, on even the school who knows more about it other than someone who does not represent either of those entities at all. So, I think it would be nice for the ACC whether it was E.J. (Manuel), myself, Coach (Mark Richt), anybody, just when you talk about that conference, talk to the guys that look at it every single day.”

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