SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. -- When Clemson wide receiver coach Dabo Swinney got the chance eight years ago to become the Tigers' head coach, the university board of trustees summoned him to a meeting. Swinney wasn't quite 40 years old, had never been a head coach, and was a few years removed from a career of leasing out retail space in strip malls.
"Now imagine this," Swinney's director of football administration, Woody McCorvey, said Saturday. "When he got over there, they said they wanted Clemson to become the Alabama, the Ohio State, of the college football world. Right out of his mouth, he said, 'I want the Ohio States and the Alabamas to be the Clemson.