Dabo Swinney identifies his biggest frustration with college football, how to fix it

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has never been shy about expressing his frustrations with the game of football. On the Always College Football podcast with Greg McElroy, Swinney said what his biggest frustration with the sport is at the moment.

“The game, there’s so many good things,” Swinney said. “My biggest frustration with this game honestly, Greg, is we’re probably the only profession that I know of where the experts in the profession really have no say. There’s good coaches, there’s bad coaches, There’s good bankers, there’s bad bankers. There’s good teachers, there’s bad teachers. There’s good preachers, there’s bad preachers. There’s good politicians there’s bad politicians. There’s good and bad in everything. We know that. But our profession, football people could fix football problems (snaps) like that. But we really don’t have the opportunity to do that. It’s one of the most unique things.

Swinney then went into an analogy about him and McElroy going to the local hospital near McElroy’s home in Birmingham and writing the surgical procedures for their operation room.

They would never do that, Swinney said, because even though they have both been under the knife, they have never performed surgery before.

While the example is very different from the game of football, Swinney is trying to say that listening to experts makes sense when writing the rules of something.

“We would never do that in any other profession,” Swinney said. “We would listen to the experts. But there’s just a lot of football problems that football people really don’t have say. Even the people who have lived it and they have the perspective. It’s unique that way, and I think that’s what’s led to a lot of craziness in our world. Having said that, I do feel like for the first time since I’ve been a head coach and maybe in a long time, I do feel like we are heading in a — even though it’s crazy right now — I think we’re heading into a better place where we are going to have some type of new governance structure where we can have a voice. Where we can have an issue at 9am and by three, we fixed it. I think that that day is coming for college football.

Despite frustrations, Dabo Swinney still loves the core of college football

Dabo Swinney may have plenty of frustrations with how college football is run today but he still loves the sport. And he thinks there is actually no better time in its history than now when it comes to what it can provide to young people.

“It’s never been better when it comes to opportunities for young people and the lessons that this game provides,” Swinney said. “I have a PhD in 18 to 23 year olds. I’ve been one. I’ve raised three of them. And for 30 years I’ve been living with them. Here’s the one thing I’ll tell you about 18 to 23 year olds, they ain’t changed. The world has changed around them. But they’re the same. They’re young. They have dreams. They have goals. They have fears. They have doubts. They need structure. They need discipline. They need guidance. They’re just young people that are trying to figure it all out. There’s no greater teacher than the game of football in my opinion.”