‘Tyler from Spartanburg’ was annoying, but he wasn’t all wrong about Dabo Swinney | Opinion

I wanted to side with Dabo Swinney, for my money the best coach in the history of Clemson Tigers football and my native South Carolina. (Dawn Staley at the University of South Carolina is beginning to make me rethink that, given her Gamecock basketball success.) But I can’t.

After seeing reports about a Swinney “rant” to a fan during a radio call-in show, I thought it was probably justified. College football fans are fickle, delusional even. They can be ugly — boy, can they be ugly — when their team doesn’t win as much as fans are used to them winning. That was my initial impression of “Tyler from Spartanburg.”

Tyler was annoying. Multiple times, he mentioned Swinney’s enormous salary and took jabs at Swinney’s outspoken and unapologetic Christian faith, as well as hiring decisions Tyler disagreed with. How can Swinney justify a nearly $11 million annual salary while only breaking even on wins and losses so far this year? Tyler wanted to know. Tyler had to know.

Swinney responded by listing off his long list of accomplishments, including a nearly-unprecedented string of double-digit win seasons and two national titles within the past seven years. He did that while graduating his players and sending a great number to play in the National Football League.

That record is maybe the most impressive in college football during that period. It’s an enormous amount of success, which is not easy no matter how many resources you have, how fat your pockets are, or the number of times you pray to Jesus for guidance on whether to blitz on defense when your opponent is facing a third down with six yards to go or run a screen or draw on offense to slow down a potent pass rush.

More football knowledge has leaked out of Swinney’s left pinky toe than there likely has ever been in all of Tyler from Spartanburg’s family tree.

You can’t sensibly look at Swinney’s track record and utter “failure,” even if you include this year’s mediocre record or that the last national title came a few years ago. Fans sometimes are idiots, something every serious fan of every sport readily acknowledges. That doesn’t excuse Swinney, though.

It doesn’t excuse Swinney because he knows this about fans. Because he knows that it has been a frustrating season for players, coaches and fans alike, and that what Tyler said wasn’t on the extreme end of what fans say. Because Swinney knows his enormous salary means he must be held to the highest standard.

In the past, Swinney has scolded players for using their Clemson football platforms to elevate issues such as the fight for racial equality, even as Swinney was using his not just for football but to spread his brand of faith. And he has balked at changes that allow college athletes to earn money through name, image and likeness (NIL) agreements — even though Swinney could not make $11 million a year without the blood, sweat and tears of those players.

As great a football coach as Swinney is, he would not have won national titles, as many games, or coaching awards without players such as Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence. Players matter that much.

During his rant, Swinney sounded like an old-school pastor. He is to preach and the rest of us are to sit at his knee and accept everything he says or does as gospel. That’s not happening — and shouldn’t.

Tyler was annoying, but not completely wrong. Will Swinney adapt to the new realities of college athletics? Or will he go the way of men like Bob Knight, the hall of fame coach of Indiana University basketball whose stubborn ways frustrated him so much he lost himself and his legendary career came to an ignominious end?

Swinney may not like fans like Tyler from Spartanburg. But he’d be a fool to dismiss them out of hand. Sometimes our harshest critics see things we refuse to.

Issac Bailey is a McClatchy Opinion writer in North and South Carolina.