If you think Dabo Swinney is not hungry to win another national championship, then you are not paying attention.

Earlier on Friday, Clemson officially announced Kevin Kelly to its football staff.

Who is Kevin Kelly?

He is the final piece of the puzzle that could put Clemson back at the top of the college football world.

Kelly is Clemson Football’s Director of Player Evaluation & Acquisition, essentially, he is the Tigers’ general manager. This is the latest of many moves by Swinney over the last three months to show it is serious about getting back to the top in college football.

Swinney has been hammered over the last four years that he was not evolving as a head coach, and Clemson was falling behind. They were not wrong.

But we have all said, including yours truly, that if/and once Swinney puts it all together, he will build the Clemson program back into the giant it once was.

For some reason, people continue to doubt Dabo Swinney. But he is okay with that because that is partly what drives him.

Swinney loves to be told he cannot do something. It is his origin story.

After high school, he was told there was no way he could play college football at the University of Alabama.

What did he do?

He walked on at Alabama, made the team, earned a scholarship and started in the 1992 National Championship Game.

It was not easy. Swinney came from a broken home and had tons of obstacles to overcome along the way, but he did it.

Then he became an assistant coach at Alabama. He did well in that role, while coaching seven years for the Crimson Tide. While there, he became a top-notch recruiter and a wide receivers coach.

However, when Mike Dubose got fired after the 2000 season, Swinney was fired along with him and suddenly was out of football.

Swinney had a hard time finding another job as an assistant coach. He ultimately got into commercial real estate and did quite well. But Swinney missed coaching and after two years in commercial real estate, where he was told he would never coach again, he was hired by Tommy Bowden to be Clemson’s new wide receivers coach.

People told Swinney it was mistake because Bowden was on the hot seat at Clemson and could get fired. We all know what happened.

Clemson had an incredible run at the end of the 2003 season, and Bowden and his staff were retained. Swinney stayed at Clemson and five years later became the interim head coach when Bowden stepped away in the middle of the 2008 season.

He eventually won the job by guiding the Tigers to a 4-2 record to close out the regular season.

The national media had a field day, and ESPN gave Clemson a D-minus on the hire and said the Tigers would be searching for a head in two years. That was 16 years ago, and we all know what has happened since.

Here we are in 2025. The media has been saying the game has passed Swinney by and Clemson’s glory days are behind them.

That was a mistake.

Swinney has embraced NIL. He has found a way, better than anyone, when it comes to retaining his star players.

Two years ago, he went and stole a young up-and-coming offensive coordinator from a TCU team that just played in the national championship. Then last off-season, he talked one of the best offensive line coaches and recruiters in the country to come to back college football and work for him.

This off-season he went out and got three players from the transfer portal that will help the 2025 team. He then went and stole one of the top defensive coordinators in the country from Penn State.

And now he brings in an experienced front office person from the NFL to scout, acquire and manage his roster.

Yeah, I think Swinney knows what he is doing, and college football is about to find that out again.