Josh Pate shares his opinion on Clemson's Dabo Swinney

Dabo Swinney is one of the most polarizing figures in college football. It's an interesting notion - Swinney is known for his positive energy and faith-based practices - but the Clemson head football coach has been known to drop the occasional controversial sound bite.

Prior to NIL being introduced, Swinney famously mused on players being paid, saying "As far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me. I’ll go do something else, because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is." He'd go on to joke that “We built this program on NIL. We really did,” Swinney said. “It’s probably different from what you’re thinking, though. We built this program in God’s name, image, and likeness.”

His jokes and unique style sometimes overshadow what's been an elite coaching career. Swinney has brought Clemson two national titles and played in two more. But for all his success, Swinney's persona is grating to some. Josh Pate recently shared his opinion on Swinney on his show Late Kick with Josh Pate.

"So I'm talking to some folks in the coaching world and they were talking about Dabo Swinney the other day and it got me to thinking because they were giving me their opinion about... maybe some of his methodology they're not crazy about," began Pate. "The bottom line is: the guy's results speak for themselves."

Pate brought up Swinney in response to a Twitter post, asking what people thought of Swinney. Pate broke the responses down into four catergories.

"One is, "I respect him. He's a high-character guy. I love the way he goes about his business."... There is a fairly sizeable group of people - I may fall into this group actually - that says "There are some things about him that I don't particularly love... but by and large I think he's a stand-up guy and you can't deny his results.""

"Then there's category three," continued Pate. "That is "I don't like him. I don't like Dabo, I don't like his methodology, I think he may be a little bit too showy - plays to the audience - and part of him is just straight-up tacky"... Bucket number four is, "I despise him. I think he's inauthentic and I don't want anything to do with him." and then there's probably a personal attack or two lobbed at the very end of that."

Pate then shared his take on Dabo Swinney.

"So the guy may have a couple of things that I don't particularly love? Here's what I know; anyone that's ultra-close to him, anyone that's been around him - high school coaches especially - that I've talked to, they come back and they say the same thing "Whether you like him or not, there's nothing fake about [Dabo Swinney]." In fact, I recall Dabo as one of the most brutally authentic and one of the most brutally 'what you see is what you get' kind of guys in coaching."

More Clemson Football News:

Join the community!

If you haven't yet, please subscribe to our YouTube page! We'll be breaking down all things Clemson football. Be sure to follow along with us on Twitter as well!