SHUT UP ALREADY ABOUT DANNY FORD!

It’s like clockwork. Or the rising and setting sun. Or the cultural dwarfism of the Tea Party.

“When Danny was coach...”

“Danny would have...”

“DF didn’t have any blah blah blah either...”

“Just like Danny,...”

It’s like the legend of Clemson’s greatest coach ever has become this cloud that hangs over the entire university and an obsession among too many fans.

While Ford was indeed a legend and should not have been fired back in ’90, the fact is he’s been gone for 20 years. He’s not coming back, ever.

Let it go.

Move forward with your life and fandom.

Quit trying to draw extraneous comparisons between some ill-experienced head coach that should have never been hired to begin with and Ford.

Yes, both Ford and Dabo Swinney played at Alabama.

Yes, neither had head coaching nor coordinator experience prior to taking Clemson’s top spot.

Yes, they both seem to have that kuntree-ham-and-cornbread persona that connects with fans.

Eh, well, maybe. Swinney does appear to be burning some bridges with fans now. But I’ll let that one slide, for now.

Yes, they both were successful position coaches who could develop players before taking the head job.

Oh...wait. Oops. That last part isn’t true. Sorry.

Yes, both coached under championship predecessors, so successful in fact that both went on to bigger and better things after Clemson.

Uh, sorry. Oops again. My bad.

Yes, Ford and Swinney have publicly taken jabs at fans for voicing their frustrations.

Damn! Another mea culpa!

Wow, it appears the superficial comparisons that fans make between Swinney and Ford get derailed when a little more digging is done and more facts brought to light.

I can understand Ford being the benchmark for Clemson football. There was never any better a time to be a Clemson fan than there was in the ‘80s. Hell, I’ll throw in 1978 and 1979 out for good measure.

I was there during the 80s. During that time Ford cussed up the officials when that Maryland receiver (or tight end) flubbed a pass in the end zone in Death Valley and dropped it yet the refs called it a touchdown anyway.

And that time when that record-breaking balloon launch occurred.

And that time when the Fridge barreled through North Carolina’s offensive line like it was made of Legos and sacked a Tar Heel receiver during an attempted reverse. Or was it a double-reverse?

And the tie with Boston College in ’82 and remembered thinking “what’s this crap? The NFL has overtimes, why not college?”

And traveling to Blacksburg for an away game with my family and upon arriving at the stadium thinking “this place is too sterile.”

And the win over Stanford in the Gator Bowl where the Stanford band was in trouble for mooning the crowd during its last week’s game or something.

I even remember watching the Clemson-South Carolina game in ’81 in Littlejohn Coliseum with my family and aunts and uncles on closed-circuit TV, as Chuck McSwain ran amok in Columbia that night en route to the win and a shot at the National Championship in Miami.

It’s been a long time and my memory isn’t what it used to be but yeah, I remember all that shit.

So fuck you if you dare question what I know about the endangered species that is the championship Clemson football teams. Any of you 17-30-year-old ignorant suckholes who only think you know what a championship team looks like, shut up and listen to the wise old farts like me who’ve actually seen them, and seen them wearing a paw.

But those days are gone now. Never to return. And neither is Ford.

As sentimental as a stroll down memory lane is, the fact is that does nothing for Clemson’s problems today. Football, in many ways, is still the same basic game it always was. But it has also evolved in many other ways, to the point that it’s time to consider that Ford’s winning strategies may not work in today’s climate.

Some things from yesteryear would work, but others won’t. The fact that players are much bigger and faster mandates a more modern approach.

In short, don’t think for a minute that it’s a lock that Ford’s strategies would work just like it did back then. We don’t know that, and there’s no way we’d ever know that. SO what do we do?

Move on. And let the past go.

Swinney’s leash is much longer than you think

I read all the time about coach Dabo Swinney not having the leash that Bowden had. That he’s not going to get 10 years or whatever.

Come on. Given who the athletic director is, what makes you really think this?

That if the losses pile up and no ACC titles are won this year or next that athletic director Terry Don Phillips will, magically, see the writing on the wall and take appropriate action at that time? If you think this, you don’t know TDP.

Well, I don’t know him either. Personally. But we’ve all read plenty about him to know that Swinney is his golden child. And in any workplace, golden children enjoy a high level of job security that is not afforded to others.

If you’ve ever worked for a typical family-owned business, you know what I’m talking about.

Before Swinney was anointed Clemson’s messiah, TDP clearly exuded a rapidly decreasing level of confidence in former coach Tommy Bowden. What began as a head-shaking disappointment in Bowden after Clemson’s Music City Bowl loss to Kentucky in ’06 ended up with TDP being fed up after losing to Alabama, Maryland and Wake Forest in mid ’08. Phillips fired Bowden (let’s face it, Bowden didn’t voluntarily resign) after the Wake loss, which was four years too late, and immediately promoted Swinney to interim head coach, saying Swinney, somehow, would be auditioning for the permanent gig.

All this did was give TDP a path to make Swinney the permanent coach, as it’s clear that Swinney was TDP’s choice all along after Swinney was chosen amid a sham of a national coaching search by TDP where he reportedly interviewed former Oakland Raider head coach and USC offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, Oklahoma defensive coordinator Brent Venables, Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster and a few others far more qualified that Swinney. Clearly all Swinney had to do to get the job was what Bowden did - beat South Carolina. And beating a stiflingly mediocre Gamecock program somehow seems to be enough to hire and fire at Clemson. Talk about standards.

“But, but....Danny (Ford) didn’t have any coordinator or head coaching experience before being hired and look how that worked out!”

Really? You really think lightning is going to strike twice for Clemson? But okay, I’ll play - but here’s a difference between pre-head coach Ford and pre-head coach Swinney...

Ford clearly coached up successful offensive lines, as highlighted by the Bostic brothers who went on to much NFL success (Joe was with the then-St. Louis Cardinals while Jeff was one of the legendary Hogs (offensive linemen for the Washington Redskins).

Swinney, on the other hand, has fielded chronically failed receiver corps while being their position coach. Dropped passes, which still haunt Clemson today, were prevalent as early as 2006 under Swinney's watch. Moreover, none of his receivers have really excelled at the next level. Chansi Stuckey, who was cut from the New York Jets soon after Rex Ryan took over, is now with the Cleveland Browns. In his fourth year as pro, he’s never started. Tyler Grisham, who I always liked as I thought he was arguably their most reliable receiver and athletic as hell with some of those crazy catches he made, was cut by the Steelers only to be resigned to the practice squad. Jacoby Ford, who is talented and fast, is third string with Oakland. In short, Clemson’s receivers under Swinney are largely not drafted, and what few are end up third string at best or cut within a year or two.

Unlike Ford’s offensive linemen, Swinney’s receivers are undeveloped and unprepared for the NFL. This is not a shot at Clemson’s former players, they are and were talented men. But even the best players look to their coaches to make them better, and Swinney can’t.

Anyway, because Swinney’s hire was 100 percent hunch on TDP’s part, as there is no measurable reason to justify his promotion, there clearly is a level of office politics going on at Clemson. And where there is politics, you can throw out any logic that would ordinarily apply to a given situation. And Swinney’s hire reeks of politics, period.

Because TDP has hung his hat on Swinney, he will hang on to him as long as he can to prove that he isn’t an idiot. Because to fire Swinney next year or the next will be an admission of failure by TDP. And he is way too foolishly proud to admit failure.

To reiterate, to say that if the losses pile up and no ACC titles are won that TDP will come to his senses, should there be any, admit his mistake and fire Swinney is simply not believable. If winning titles was important, Clemson would have hired an upgrade to Bowden instead of going the cheap and lazy route by promoting a position coach who’s players have historically stunk. So let’s not apply logic and common sense to what goes on at Clemson. It’s tempting but it would be incorrect to do so.

I will say that the only way Swinney will get sacked by TDP is if the boosters put ungodly amounts of pressure on him and threaten to withhold monies and other strong-arming techniques to force change. But one thing I’ll never believe is that TDP will fire Swinney on his own free will, even if the situation demands it.

Outside of booster pressure, as long as TDP is at Clemson Swinney’s going nowhere. So that leash is much longer than you’d think.

It’s clear: Swinney is no upgrade from Bowden

And he’s certainly no reincarnation of Danny Ford. If anything, he looks more like Tommy West or Red Parker every day.

* * *

It’s been a while since I wrote/ragged on Clemson’s self-inflicted spiral into football irrelevancy. I was contemplating not writing anything at all; Clemson football has been exposed as a big bowl of head-shaking ick and everyone knows it. Even the apologists and excusers and members of the “I like Dabo but...” crowd see it but they are just too ball-less to face it full-frontal because they ignorantly think that to criticize Clemson or, god forbid, Dabo Swinney is akin to blasphemy. But I figured what the hell.

In the beginning when Swinney proclaimed that all Clemson needed was an oil change, tire rotate and balance, whatever it was he said to sell some legitimacy into his head coaching campaign, he clearly implied that it wouldn’t take long or much to put Clemson over the hump. This has clearly been proven to be snake-oil by the former insurance salesman, as since Swinney took over mid ‘08 Clemson has not looked a lot different from Tommy Bowden’s teams in the win-loss columns.

Lopsided losing record (only one win) versus ranked opponents is the tell. If that doesn’t scream same-old same-old I don’t know what does.

And don’t bring up winning the Atlantic last year to justify his hire. They didn’t win it as much as the rest of the division lost it. Clemson fell ass-backward into the ACC title game, period, and it was more due to C.J. Spiller, now with the Buffalo Bills, than Swinney.

And don’t quantify his enormously average to below-average record by conveniently removing his interim season. That his ’08 audition doesn’t count since he was ‘bailing water’. It does in fact count, and it should. If it didn’t count, it would have played no role in his hire. But he was hired because of his water-bailing, so it counts. The moment athletic director Terry Don Phillips said that Swinney's interim period was his audition for a permanent position was the moment it counted. You can’t have it both ways.

Last year Clemson began the season dirtying their diaper, the crown jewel of that poor excuse of football is losing to a putrid Maryland team that finished 2-10. Clemson lost three of their first five but, by definition of inconsistency, inexplicably went on a hot streak won their next six. Again by definition of inconsistency they inexplicably lost the next two, one to a South Carolina team that was on a skid and had a poor offense, the other to a Georgia Tech team in the ACC title game that they should have, by then, known how to beat.

This year will be more of the same at best. After “tuning up” against two patsies, they blew it against an Auburn team they had a 17-3 halftime lead on, and again against Miami, who is another in a long line of warted ACC teams. Not to mention Clemson’s third straight loss being to a North Carolina team that was missing scads of starters. None of these three teams are really good teams. Just because Clemson loses to a team doesn’t make said team good.

Some good “tune-up” games do for Clemson.

And don’t hand me any crap about how Clemson “played hard” and fell short. We heard that refrain for years under Bowden. Five years from now no one’s going to give a crap how Clemson lost. The only thing that will matter is the black and white: whether they actually won or lost. The ends count, not the means, and Clemson is currently perched at 0-3 against teams with a pulse.

Every team has problems. It doesn’t take a beat journalist to validate our belief in this. But the truly great teams overcome their problems and win in spite of them. Clemson, on the other hand, succumbs to them every single time.

But with Clemson, it’s like a weekly musical chairs of Achilles Heels. One week it’s the linebackers. The next week the linebackers do fine but the line skids its pants. The following week the line does fine but the kicking game costs them a win (or tie, in Auburn’s case). If not the kicking game, it’s the passing game led by a broken quarterback. If not the passing game, then turnovers. Then back to the linebackers and the cycle begins again. It’s endless.

It’s pathetic that Clemson’s entire staff has such little control over the team that there is a new obscure, ass-biting problem each week. Good head coaches have a firm, solid grasp of their team, and Swinney clearly doesn’t. Not only has he lost his grasp of the team, but if what I’m hearing is true that more than one player was laughing and joking it up during the final ticks of the clock, I wonder if he’s lost his players. And when a coach loses his players, it’s over. But that may be a stretch right now but it’s the first thing I thought of when I heard about the laughing and joking on the sidelines. Throw in there that over the past few weeks certain coaches have wised-assed to media or fans (Andre Powell, Kevin Steele, Swinney), and you have a coaching staff that not only has no grasp of the team but also is desperate as they can't take hard questions nor provide legitimate solutions.

So, what will be Clemson’s waterloo next time? Special teams coverage? Turnovers again? Or will they (gasp!) actually win? Even if they win, will they look all warted up doing it? I do think Clemson will win. I really don’t know why, I just do, maybe it’s because I haven’t had my Seroquel yet.

To compound this, Swinney seems to be sounding a bit, well, Bowdenish, in that he’s come up with a mantra for losing: “correctable/fixable mistakes”, in hopes of keeping the fans gassed up on false hope.

Funny, Clemson had “correctable mistakes” weeks ago after they lost to Auburn. Were those mistakes corrected before the Miami game? And if they somehow were, what new “correctable mistakes” cropped up that the coaches didn’t anticipate? I direct you to the ‘grasp’ paragraph above.

“Correctable mistakes”. Make note of this Clemson fans; this will be a common catchphrase from Swinney throughout his tenure, just as “oil change” was in his ’08 campaign and “one play away” was for Bowden as now we’re led to believe by Swinney that Clemson is one correction or fix away.

I wonder how long it’ll be before Swinney begins using “fifty percent of all the teams that played Saturday lost”.

“But, but but....Swinney wasn’t the one on the field! This is the players’ fault!” Really, how dumb are you? Are you so stupid to think that it’s not the coaches’ job to prepare the team for play, and then ensure the team plays as prepared? This isn’t the NFL with grown men in their mid-20s to mid-30s who are (physically) mature and being paid millions. These are late-teens to early 20s, and they are not mature enough yet to prepare themselves accordingly. In college, the coaches are crucially responsible for prepping the players, unlike in the NFL. Nebraska coach Bo Pelini once said that when the team wins you credit the players, and when it loses you blame the coaches, and that’s how it’s gotta be. And when a team loses as much as Clemson has, especially against ranked teams, you have to question the legitimacy of Swinney’s hiring.

This all said, this really isn’t a Swinney bashfest. Well, maybe just a little given his penchant for oil changes and correctable mistakes, but the fact is Swinney just took a job offer. Much like one Ken Hatfield a million years ago. Can’t blame Swinney for taking it but that doesn’t exonerate the fact that he’s clearly in over his head. This cluster of a program falls squarely on Phillips, James Barker and the Board, and partially on Katie Hill, the Queen to Phillips’ Sleepy/Dopey combo dwarf. Although they didn’t create this (this foundation was laid out by Max Lennon and Bobby Robinson), Phillips, Barker and Board just built on it. Which is why Swinney is in this pickle to begin with.

* * *

In his post-game interview after the North Carolina debacle Swinney stated, “Sooner or later you’ll bust through.”

Sooner...or later? Given your “oil change” sales pitch, ‘later’ is not an option, coach Swinney. You yourself took that off the table from the beginning. Of course it doesn’t surprise me now you’re using it to save face.

But I do agree that Clemson football is only in need of an oil change to get over the hump. Too bad Swinney is no mechanic.