In His Own Words: 5 Years Later, Clemson is Still a Bunch of "Rednecks"
In fact, in this episode of "In His Own Words," Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney recalls why his dream was to not only build a one-time team, but to build a lasting program — all with a bunch of rednecks.
"(The goal was) Not really be a great team, but have a great program. A program that's consistent. It's been a long time since Clemson was relevant in that Top 10, top 15 area. Even though we won a National Championship in 1981.
"So that really was our goal, and our objective was to build a program, to not take any shortcuts, and you do that in a lot of ways. Graduation, recruiting, disciplining your program, structure, your staff, all of those things. We've been able to become very, very consistent. In '11 when we won the league for the first time and won ten games for the first time in 20-something years and that was great. That was a good place to start.
"But the message then was, OK, let's see if we can kind of keep our head down and go play three, four, five ten-plus-win seasons together and become a consistent program. Because if you can be a consistent top-ten, top 15 type program, then you're going to have those years where you can put it all together. That's kind of the way it's been for us.
"But there is no question Clemson belongs. I mean, we've been as consistent as anybody out there in the country. Then you've got to be able to step out of your conference and win big-time games and we've been able to do that. So lot of hard work by a lot of great coaches and a lot of great young men over the last seven years. It's not just this year's team. It's been a culmination of all of those guys that have helped us build a good foundation that I think can allow us to sustain that type of consistency.
"Yeah, that's what I said this morning on the radio show. We're kind of that redneck that moved into the nice neighborhood and everybody's going where'd you come from? But these guys belong right where they are and they've earned it."
