Former College Gameday personality adds fuel to growing revenge angle for Miami against Clemson and Dabo Swinney
The tables have turned since Swinney dealt the final blow to a former Hurricanes head coach.
The Miami Hurricanes and Clemson Tigers don’t play every year, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some truly memorable moments on the field between the two programs over the last 10-12 years. And that includes both the competitive and track wreck varieties.
The programs last met on October 21, 2023 at Hard Rock Stadium. For the first time since 2010, the Hurricanes triumphed against the Tigers, winning 28-20 in overtime on a fourth down tackle for loss against Cade Klubnik.
Between then, the Tigers had owned the series, winning four in a row. And none was uglier than in 2015. Clemson came to Hard Rock Stadium and destroyed Miami 58-0. It was the final game for former Hurricanes coach Al Golden, who was fired the next day.
Now, the shoe is on the other foot for both programs. Miami comes in on the heels of a national title appearance last year and looks poised to make another series run this year. Meanwhile, Clemson is trying to bounce back from an embarrassing 7-6 season, and they started off the year with an abomination of a performance in a 51-10 loss to LSU.
Could the end be nearing for Dabo Swinney in Clemson? Former ESPN College Gameday member Chris “Bear” Fallica seems to think it’s possible. Fallica believes that Miami could be the one on Oct. 3 to issue the final blow to Swinney’s time in Clemson.
Former college gameday member Chris “Bear” Fallica thinks Miami could deliver final blow to Dabo Swinney era at Clemson
“After Miami goes there and beats them by three touchdowns, the idle week will be the week where Dabo and the administration come together to basically say, ‘okay, I’m going to resign.’ Settle a buyout.
“Couple of ironic things here is it was Clemson and Dabo Swinney that went to Miami and put up like a fifty to nothing — whatever the game was — on Miami, which ultimately ended Al Golden’s era at Miami. So it could be Miami kind of role reversal here ending Dabo Swinney’s tenure.
Fallica went on to muse that perhaps Swinney might be okay with it and ready to move on from the new NIL/transfer portal era of college football and compared it to Nick Saban’s departure.
“Wouldn’t you think, in a weird way, Dabo might be okay with it now? He’s tried to do it his way. He’s not a fan of this era of college football. Yeah, he’s proud and you don’t want to step down, but he just might be like, ‘you know what?’ Just look at some of the college basketball coaches. Nick Saban. You just don’t want to deal with it anymore with how it’s headed down there. He might be okay with it.”
That’s quite the bold statement from Fallica, and quite the assumption that Swinney is ready to hang them up if things go south again. But there’s no doubt that the parallels of the 2015 situation with Golden and Miami and 2026 with Swinney and Clemson are hard to totally ignore and discount.
The Hurricanes are trending towards national prominence now, just as Clemson was in 2015, the first of their three title game appearances in four years. It was obvious that the job had passed Golden by in Coral Gables and that he was out of his element now. Despite extreme success in comparison to Golden, Swinney is looking like a fish out of water in the new NIL era.
We’ll see how things go for Clemson in the next few weeks and on Oct. 3, but things are not looking promising for the Tigers — both against the Hurricanes and in the near future overall.
