The Clemson Tigers will face the Alabama Crimson Tide on New Year’s Day, marking the third time in three years these two teams will be playing in the postseason. The two head coaches, Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban, have their fair share of accolades, with Saban edging out Swinney in more categories than one. But there are a couple pretty remarkable things Swinney will achieve if the Tigers come out on top:
Dabo Swinney can pass Nick Saban and Bear Bryant in the record books by beating Alabama
He’s got a chance to make history.
Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Dabo’s head coaching record is 101-29, compared to Saban’s 221-62-1. Swinney may not have achieved the greatest-of-all-time stature that comes with both Saban and Bryant just yet, but numbers don’t lie, and these prove he’s getting pretty dang close.
When looking at the program Swinney has built at Clemson, the way he runs things is modeled pretty similar to Alabama under Saban.
Swinney defeated Saban in the national title game last year, so he certainly has the ability to do it again. As Shakin The Southland pointed out on Wednesday, he’s defeated a good number of national title-winning coaches in recent years:
Swinney and company have faced some of the best coaches in the game. The list of national championship winning coaches they’ve defeated in bowl games includes Les Miles (2012), Urban Meyer (2013, 2016), Bob Stoops (2014, 2015), and Nick Saban (2016). Since Brent Venables has been on staff at Clemson, the Tigers have beaten a Championship-winning coach in a bowl every year.
With less than a week before the matchup, Oddshark still lists the line as dead even. We’ll see if Swinney makes history.
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