It is hard to believe Saturday, when top-ranked Clemson hosts No. 7 Miami, will mark five years since Dabo Swinney’s famous rant about the verb “Clemsoning.”
Swinney’s rant, which can easily be found on YouTube, came after the Tigers’ 43-24 victory over Georgia Tech on October 10, 2015. The win over the Yellow Jackets came a week after Clemson knocked off No. 6 Notre Dame, 24-22, in a torrential downpour at Death Valley.
The word “Clemsoning” was used to explain an inexplicable loss the Clemson Football Program became notorious for in the Tommy Bowden years and for the first few years of the Swinney era. But those instances started to become few and far between beginning in 2012.
“That is all media bull crap. I will tell you how they feel about it,” Swinney said at the time. “They don’t like it. It is a lack of respect. It is not doing your homework and paying attention to what reality is. I should not be asked that question, period!
“That’s how we feel about it. This football team right here has earned respect. They have not given us anything. Not one ounce of anything. They have earned everything they got. When I have to turn on the TV and people bring up that word, and they try to casually bring the word up like you do, but it is still the word. It should not even be in the conversation. That’s how they feel about it, and that is how I feel about it.”
Since Swinney’s rant, Clemson has become one of the elite programs in college football. The Tigers have won two national championships, five straight ACC Championships, earned five straight berths in the College Football Playoff and have won more games than any program in the country.
By the way, the word “Clemsoning” has since been dropped from the sportscasters’ and reporters’ vernacular.
“I do have a very clear understanding of how we got here and what it took to get here, and a deep appreciation for all the ball that has been involved. It has been special. There is no question about it,” Swinney said earlier this week on Tiger Calls, his call-in radio show on the Clemson Tigers Sports Network. “Every time we win it is special. I just have to chuckle when people are upset when we win by eighteen points against a really good team. That just kind of cracks me up. But that is the type of program that I wanted to build.
“I wanted to build a program that when everybody gets their schedule, they circle your name. That is the type of program I wanted to build, a program that has elite consistency in everything. We are not going to win a championship every year, but we have elite consistency in everything we do both on and off the field.”
And they do not ever have to hear the word “Clemsoning” again.
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