Dabo Swinney wouldn't be where he is today without a visit to Texas and Mack Brown

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney had his interim tag removed on December 1, 2008. Up to that point, Swinney had never been a head coach at any level. He started his career as a grad assistant at Alabama before joining Tommy Bowden‘s staff ahead of the 2003 season. In searching for ways to run a program with national championship potential, Swinney looked for help from a national championship coach.

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The only one who answered his calls back in 2009? Former Texas head coach Mack Brown.

“Ironically, I went out to Austin when I got the job at Clemson in February of ’09,” Swinney said Sunday. “I spent two or three days with coach Mack Brown. That was very impactful for me.”

Swinney mentioned the job was “life changing” for him as he took over for Bowden.

“I just was looking to go learn,” Swinney said. “I didn’t know much about being a head coach other than what I had done as an interim and what I thought. I had a lot of thoughts in my head. I just felt like I needed to go learn. I actually called around to a lot of coaches, and the only guy that would let me come visit was Mack Brown. He didn’t know me from Adam. I remember calling out there and he was like ‘man, congrats. I kept up with your season and it was really cool to see you get the opportunity.’ And he’s like ‘yeah, come on out.’

“So I brought my whole staff. Strength staff, defense, offense. We went out and spent 2.5, 3 days there. He took us all to lunch. We spent a lot of time eating. I was hoping I might get an hour with him. He spent several hours with me one-on-one. I had a lot of questions. Some of it was confirmation of things where ‘I’m not crazy. I’m thinking the right way.’ A lot of it, I couldn’t even get the question out of my mouth. He could read my mind and he had the answer. That time with Mack Brown was transformational for me. As a young coach, 39 years old, it was transformational that he took the time to pour into me.

“He didn’t have to. It gave me confirmation on some things. It gave me a different way to think about a few things as well. It was a transformational time for me. I’m forever indebted to Mack Brown for that. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t know me. He went way above and beyond. I’ve still got 7-8 pages of notes that I took with my time from Mack Brown out there that really helped me when I came back to Clemson as far as being a head coach and having some confidence in what I thought we needed to do to move forward, and also some new idea on some things too. It was a great experience. Austin is a beautiful place.”

Here’s more from Swinney on the Longhorns from his Sunday media availability.

On the Longhorns: “They’ve had a great year. Sark’s done an amazing job. We’re really excited about it and look forward to the preparation process and a great matchup out there. Just thankful to have an opportunity to go compete at the highest level.

On Jay Haynes: “I don’t have (an update) right now. Still waiting on the MRI.”

On Clemson’s schedule ahead of the game: “We kind of mapped out all scenarios: winning the game (and) getting the bye, winning the game (and) playing in the first round on the 20th or the 21st, (and) not winning the game and going to a bowl game. We had mapped all those paths out. Now that we’ve got some clarity, playing on the 21st, these guys we’ll give them a couple of days off. We didn’t get much sleep, very little sleep, we had a team meeting at 11:45, that was a really awesome experience. Then we had the pizza party and the watch party there to see what our fate was going to be. Now we know. We had a plan if we got the bye.

Obviously, there would have been two teams that we would have to have do a lot of prep for. Now we know who we’re playing, where we’re playing, when we’re playing. We’ll give these guys off a couple of days. We’ll probably start meetings on Wednesday night and start practice on Thursday. We’ve got a good plan in place, and it’s a Saturday game. It’s kind of like a reverse open date. Typically on our open dates, we’ll give them the weekend off. This will be a little different with our season and where we are. They need a little break. They’ve got finals this week, so there’s a lot going on. We’ve got a good plan in place. Look forward to getting that preparation process started.”

On Tre Williams: “He seemed fine today. I haven’t gotten any complete update yet from our trainer. He seemed good today.”

On how this Clemson team is different from others, and the strengths of the Tigers: “This is what you do for a living. If you’re a parent, all your kids are different. Same DNA, but they all have different personalities and different gifts, different challenges, things like that. I would say it’s the same thing with teams that I’ve had. Some are similar, some are very different. You win different ways, but this group in particular I would say, some of the best leadership I’ve ever been around. Really special. Special leadership.

“The people on this roster are going to do some amazing things in life. I will guarantee you that. I think as far as what we’ve done best is turnover margin. We’ve been really, really good. We’re probably top 3-4 in the country in turnover margin. That was the difference in the game last night. I think we’ve been a good third down team for the most part on both sides all year. That would be probably the two biggest things from a strength standpoint. We’ve been opportunistic that way. That’s a big reason why we’re 10-3.”

On Andrew Mukuba: “I love Mukuba. He was a very unique situation. I never met Mukuba ever until the day he showed up on campus. That was all COVID and all that. Never was able to go see him, never was able to visit campus. He wanted to come to Clemson. I just loved his spirit and I loved his heart. He was just a really neat kid. That whole time was one of the strangest times of my life because recruiting is a very personal thing. People come to campus, you go there. Literally, the first time I ever met him was when he got dropped off. Everybody had to have the COVID protocols in place because that’s when he came in.

“Andrew was a great player for us. He did everything that was asked of him. He worked his butt off here. Certainly wish he had been able to finish here, but he did everything that was asked of him at Clemson. He gave a lot to this program, made a bunch of big plays. I’m happy for him. He had the opportunity. When he wanted a change, it was an opportunity to go back home. He’s had a great year. He’s an outstanding football player. Hopefully we were able to help him develop. Happy that he’s been able to have a great year. Kind of ironic that we’re meeting in the playoff, but you’ll see more of that as the years go by with guys moving around from place to place. I’ve got nothing but great things to say about Kubs.”

On Texas: “I haven’t even had a chance to put my eyes on them other than what I’ve seen like everybody else on TV. They were a final four team last year and now they’re back in the playoff. I think Sark has done an amazing job. They’ve got a great roster, a very, very talented roster. They’ve got elite quarterback play and explosive players outside. This is a complete football team in every sense of the word. They’re good enough to win the whole thing, and we’ll have our hands full for sure. Excited to go compete.”

On Cade Klubnik: “When Texas came up, it was like ‘oh, this is amazing.’ There are a lot of storylines. He’s obviously from Austin. Went to Westlake there, one of the best quarterbacks to come out of the state of Texas. Also, him and Quinn (Ewers) went head to head a lot in high school. It’s all about the game but that’s also a really cool storyline for our quarterback. You never know how things are going to work out in this crazy game of college football. For him to be going to his first playoff, because we didn’t make it in ’22… and his first playoff game is in Austin, Texas where he group up, you can’t make that up. Pretty cool opportunity for him and his family to be able to go compete against Texas there in Austin.

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On Texans on the Clemson roster: “Pretty cool opportunity for all those guys to be able to go back home… We’ve got several Texas kids on our team. I know that’ll be a great thing for them to have a chance to go play in the state of Texas.”