Dabo Swinney would prefer bye in College Football Playoff over first round momentum

Heading into the final week of the regular season, the Clemson Tigers are still fighting to make it to the College Football Playoff, either as the ACC Champion or as an at-large bid. Of course, if head coach Dabo Swinney had his choice, he’d have the conference titles and a first round bye.

There is some debate about whether it’s better to get a week off and regroup as a team or to play in the first round and build some momentum going into the rest of the Playoff. However, for Swinney, it’s clear that the bye is the better path.

“Are you asking me if I would like a bye week? Well, I guess I would say this, my preference would be to win the ACC and get a bye to the second round,” Dabo Swinney said. “That would be my preference, but sign me up for whatever happens if we can find a way in there. But yeah, if I had a perfect world, I would love to win the league and get a bye into the second round and all of that stuff. So, that would be ideal to me and get a little bit of a break.”

Going into the final week of the regular season, Clemson is ranked 12th by the College Football Playoff selection committee. Despite that, thanks to automatic qualifiers, the Tigers are on the outside looking in at the current bracket. That means that the Tigers are going to need to find a way to move up in the rankings if they want an at-large bid to make the Playoff.

On top of that, the Tigers are not guaranteed the ACC Championship Game. Clemson would need Syracuse to upset Miami in the final week of the season to get there and play for a chance to earn a bye week.

“We just talked about, this time of year, and it’s not just us,” Swinney said. “Everybody’s dealing with injuries and things like that. So, hey, we’ll take whatever we can get. We’ll be ready.”

One benefit to Clemson’s schedule this season is that it ends with South Carolina, another team that’s currently ranked. With that, the Tigers can add to their strength of schedule and potentially jump a team or two, especially if there are other top 12 teams who lose again. With that, Dabo Swinney will do his best to keep his team focused on that opportunity before looking ahead to the Playoff.