Clemson athletic director addresses Dabo Swinney being connected to Alabama job

Clemson athletic director Graham Neff said that Dabo Swinney, the school’s two-time national champion football coach, has “a long memory in a good way.”

In other words, Swinney takes note and takes stock of who’s in his corner. That short list would certainly include Neff, Clemson president Jim Clements and the university board of trustees, who haven’t hesitated to financially back Swinney’s program.

Neff said he felt like that mutual commitment was on display last month when Swinney emerged as a potential candidate to replace Nick Saban at Alabama after Saban, the Crimson’s Tide legendary coach, announced he was retiring Jan. 10.

Alabama ultimately announced the hiring of Washington coach Kalen DeBoer on Jan. 12 after a rapid 72-hour search. Earlier in the process, though, Swinney was reportedly contacted by Alabama to gauge his interest in the job.

Larry Williams of TigerIllustrated.com and David Hood of TigerNet both reported in January that Alabama had reached out to Swinney about its coaching vacancy a day after Saban’s retirement, but their conversations did not progress further from there. Details surrounding Alabama’s pursuit of Swinney are limited, but Hood’s report said their talks were “brief.”

Speaking publicly for the first time about Alabama’s reported pursuit of Swinney, Neff said on Friday that Swinney’s commitment to Clemson during that “inflection point” was proof of the strong working relationship he, Swinney and other university leaders have worked to build.

“It was just a great testament to Clemson,” Neff told The State at Clemson’s winter quarterly board of trustees meeting in North Charleston. “It’s something that Dabo and I talked a lot about while that (Alabama) transition was happening. He has a long memory in a good way. He’s going on his 16th year (as coach) and 20 years at Clemson. That support that Clemson has shown to him and Clemson football over these two decades ... that adds up and that matters.”

“And that really resonates with him and with us. Couldn’t view a better fit for Clemson football than Dabo Swinney and, quite frankly, couldn’t view a better fit for Dabo Swinney than Clemson University. And so I think that inflection point there really, really proved that.”

A rapid coaching search

Swinney was long rumored as a potential successor to Saban, given his excellent track record at Clemson and his natural ties to the state and the program. Swinney is a Pelham, Alabama, native who won a national championship playing wide receiver for the Crimson Tide and Gene Stallings in the 1990s. He also coached eight seasons for Alabama before landing at Clemson, where he’s worked since 2003.

The elephant in the room was even directly addressed in Swinney’s last two contracts with Clemson: an “Alabama clause” included in his contract that made his buyout 1.5 times higher if he left Clemson to coach at Alabama as opposed to any other school. That clause was carried over to the 10-year, $115 million contract Swinney signed in 2022.

When the possibility of Swinney leaving Clemson to replace Saban at Alabama actually arose last month, though, it was a short-lived concept. Swinney was floated as a potential candidate for the job within minutes of Saban’s retirement by national reporters, and he was at one point the odds-on betting favorite for the job after other reported candidates (Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian and Florida State’s Mike Norvell) pulled out of the search.

Neff confirmed he and Swinney were in touch during the three-day period from Jan. 10-13 that saw Saban retire and Alabama hire DeBoer as his replacement. But “all the conversations he and I had just focused on Clemson and the support that’s been there, the expectation, the excitement and the continued support.”

“And that means all the things, you know?” Neff said. “Not just anything specifically, but … it’s Clemson football. We have the highest of expectations of national competitiveness and national championships and conference championships. And so, yes, this was just a great testament from what’s been done for 20 years in partnership and what’s to come.”

Swinney, Neff and alignment

Swinney has often spoken glowingly of the alignment he has at Clemson with Neff (who replaced Dan Radakovich as Clemson’s AD in late 2021), Clements and the university board of trustees. Clemson is routinely among the nation’s leaders in money spent on football and has spearheaded a number of facilities and improvements for the program over the years.

On Friday, the board of trustees compensation committee also unanimously approved almost $2 million in pay raises to football assistant coaches that will take defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin and defensive line coach Nick Eason over $1 million in annual salary this year and bring Clemson’s assistant coach salary pool to $9.675 million, a top 10 number nationally.

After Neff was hired as Clemson’s athletic director over two years ago, one of his first calls was to Swinney and his representatives to discuss a new contract on the heels of a 10-3 season and Cheez-It Bowl win that some observers nationally and locally considered a “down year.”

“For us to continue to position him from an investment and a contractual standpoint was very intentional for me, specifically over these first eight months of the job,” Neff said in September 2022 after Swinney signed his current contract.

That contract made Swinney the second highest paid coach in terms of annual salary behind Saban (with Saban’s retirement, he now holds the top spot) and came on the heels of two prominent coaches bolting big-time schools the previous season.

A historic 2021 coaching carousel that saw Lincoln Riley leave Oklahoma for Southern Cal and Brian Kelly leave Notre Dame for LSU made it clear to Neff that college football’s coaching market had evolved “significantly,” he said at the time.

Neff said Friday that he and Swinney routinely engage in big-picture discussions on the sport and alignment between coach and university and those talks are never “transactional in nature.”

Rather, he said, it’s a continuation of what he sees as a healthy partnership that he felt was on display in a big way during Alabama’s recent coaching search. And a sign of the mutual commitment between Swinney and Clemson heading into 2024.

“That stuff matters, no question,” Neff said.

“But for him and Clemson, it’s beyond that.”