For more than 20 years, Clemson had not one 10-win season. For 20 years, the Tigers failed to win an ACC Championship. For 20 years, Clemson was an average football program, longing for the days when it used to rule the ACC and spit out 10-wins annually like Danny Ford did with chewing tobacco.
Then came along Dabo Swinney, a former player and coach at Alabama, who originally came to Clemson as an assistant coach. Like Frank Howard and Danny Ford before him, Swinney was an Alabama guy who was never a coordinator, but like Howard and Ford, he had the vision and the plan to take Clemson to the next level if ever got the shot.