CLEMSON, S.C. — Dabo Swinney has been dealing with a lot of depressed fans on his Monday call-in show but “Tyler from Spartanburg” delivered a call Monday night which sent Swinney into a five-minute rant which had enough heat to melt his headsets.
Tyler’s call lasted roughly two and a half minutes and it included questioning if Swinney had read Proverbs 16:18 which deals with pride. After questioning Swinney’s hiring practices and then dropping a “why are we paying ‘ya $11.5 million to go 4-4?”, Swinney responded with a five-minute rant which made national news.
“You can have all your opinions that you want. I don’t know how old you are. Don’t really care. But let me tell you something: We won 11 games last year. And you’re part of the problem, to be honest with you, because that is part of the problem. It’s people like you that all you do is- The expectation is greater than the appreciation. And that’s the problem.”
Swinney would continue with a theme that winning is hard and in spite of that. the Tigers won 10 or more games for 12 consecutive seasons on top of the two national championships. The coach would reel off other accomplishments including NFL Draft picks, graduation rates, while at the same time, accepting responsibility for the current win-loss record.
This continued a trend where part of Swinney’s Tuesday news conference is spent talking about a previous caller from the Monday radio show.
“I had some idiot go Old Testament on me and he got an Old Testament response,” Swinney said Tuesday.
“Y’all print that one. “That’s why most coaches around the country don’t take calls (live).”
Swinney’s complete response in Tuesday’s news conference is in the video section of this story.