Tigers are far from a dynasty

After winning their second national title in the last three seasons and owning a 2-1 record over the Crimson Tide in national championship games, Swinney still believes that the Crimson Tide are in a league of their own

The Clemson Tigers wrapped up their third national title in dominant fashion in the College Football Playoff National Championship against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

While many in the media saw the game as a changing of the guard, with the Tigers overtaking the Crimson Tide for college football’s new dynasty—Tiger head coach Dabo Swinney does not see it that way.

Instead, he believes that he has built a consistent program, but not a dynastic one.

“No, we're a long way from a dynasty. We're a great program,” Swinney said. “We're a great program. There's no doubt about that. We're incredibly consistent in every area of our program. I mean, and that's what I'm more proud of than anything is just the consistency, and one of the things we talked about this week, over the last decade, everything we've done once, we've done multiple times, and it's kind of been a progression.”

That progression to them to the place where they could beat a Nick Saban coached team by 28 points, his worst loss since arriving in Tuscaloosa in 2008, but the journey began for the Tigers back in 2009.

A group of Tigers, led by C.J. Spiller and Jacoby Ford, took the Tigers to their first ever ACC Championship game—which they lost to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. But it was that group of Tigers that paved the way for the success the Tigers have experienced in the last eight seasons.

“We won our first division in '09, well, we've won seven now,” Swinney said. “At that point we had not won a division, and then we come back in '11 and we won the league. We hadn't won the league since like 1991. Now we've won it five times. We won 10 games in '11. That was the first time since '90 or '91. Now it's been eight years. We got to a BCS in '11 and '13. I told them they lit up the Empire State Building once, and now they've done it again.”

The only thing that the Tigers’ had not accomplished in the decade was to win a national title—which was remedied in the 2016 season when Deshaun Watson found Hunter Renfrow in the end zone for a one-yard touchdown that won the Tigers their first national championship in 30 years.

Now, after winning their second national title in the last three seasons and owning a 2-1 record over the Crimson Tide in national championship games, Swinney still believes that the Crimson Tide are in a league of their own.

“So the only thing we hadn't done again was win it all. It's just been kind of a progression for us,” Swinney said. “We’ve just kind of kept our head down over the last decade and gone about our business. We're certainly – I think we're as good a program as there is out there, but we're a long way from a dynasty.

“I think from a dynasty standpoint, Alabama is kind of in a category of their own. I mean, Coach Saban may have won five National Championships in 10 years, or however long he's been there. It's incredible the run that they've had. But we're just thankful that we got the opportunity to experience it.”

Even with the words of Swinney remaining adamant that it is still Alabama and everybody else, he still believes that “little old Clemson” will see the Crimson Tide sooner rather than later—possibly in next year’s national title game.

“It's a lot of fun to compete against the University of Alabama,” Swinney said. “Probably a little bit more now, little brother has kind of grown up a little bit, and we're a little bit more competitive. Now we've kind of won the rubber match, if you will, in the Nattys. It's 2-2 overall, and I told Coach Saban last night, he was very gracious after the game, and I just told him, I said, see you next year, because I don't think they're going to go anywhere. They'll be back.