Dabo Swinney is the best motivator in college football, and there really isn't much of a debate anymore.
The Clemson head coach gets the most out of his team every single year. Need proof? The Tigers finished higher than their preseason ranking each of the previous eight seasons, including finishing No. 1 two of the past three years.
Swinney searches for any little seed of doubt he can find from outside his program, typically exaggerates it a bit and feeds it to his team for motivation.
Last year, Swinney coined the phrase "ROY bus" to describe his Tigers, telling the media that Clemson was just a part of the "rest of y'all" chasing Alabama, despite the Tigers being No. 2 for each College Football Playoff poll in 2018.
As Swinney was telling ESPN or local reporters the Tigers were on the ROY bus, creating the narrative that Clemson was an underdog, he was telling his team: No one believes in you, but I know y'all are the best team in the country.
You can't argue with the results.
Swinney pulled the ROY bus out of the shed for a bit earlier this year, but it has remained in park for most of the season. The playful tone Swinney had with the ROY bus last year is gone and has been replaced by what appears to be a genuine sense of annoyance. Swinney has lit into some parts of the media for disrespecting his team in each of his three most recent media availabilities.
"My passion is this program and these players. And from time to time, as a leader, I think you've got to speak up," Swinney said Tuesday, explaining why he has been so vocal recently. "Simple as that, and not let other people diminish what other people have accomplished because that's been an objective from some people. I just try to tell the truth and the way I see it."
So who does Swinney feel is trying to diminish what the Tigers have accomplished?
The only specific example he has given is when he went on ESPN's First Take a couple of months ago and was asked by Stephen A. Smith if Clemson could win out and still miss the playoff. Swinney laughed it off at the time but has brought up the question a couple of times recently as proof his program is disrespected.
But with all due respect to Smith, he's not a college football expert. In addition to being the star of First Take, he also hosts a radio show and covers the NBA for ESPN. He's not watching hours of film breaking down college football games. He's not on College Football Live or College GameDay. He is someone whose job is to have takes (usually hot ones) and stir the pot.
There was some criticism of Clemson after the Tigers had a close call against North Carolina, and it showed with Clemson being ranked No. 5 in the initial CFP rankings. That appeared to bother Swinney at the time, and he feels some people never got over the UNC game. Swinney believes there is a double standard, and if the same thing happened to Alabama, the Crimson Tide wouldn't have been punished.
"What's been achieved by this group of young people should be recognized, and it's a shame that a lot of people have missed it outside of our folks here," he said.
Still, there has been plenty of praise heaped upon Clemson this season. Most everyone has projected Clemson to reach the College Football Playoff throughout the year, even after the close call against UNC.
Just this week, Travis Etienne was named the ACC Player of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive season. And Isaiah Simmons earned the ACC Defensive Player of the Year award as the Tigers swept the honors.
Clemson led the league with 16 players named All-ACC, twice as many as any other school, but Swinney chose to focus on a player who wasn't honored instead of the ones that were.
"Not real sure how (James) Skalski didn't make it," Swinney said. "He'd have been one of my top votes for sure. I don't even think he made honorable mention ... just kind of how it goes."
The past several weeks in particular Etienne and quarterback Trevor Lawrence have taken their games to another level. And it's a big reason why ESPN's Joey Galloway recently said: "Everyone would like to avoid playing Clemson in a semifinal ... nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to see Clemson in a semifinal."
But Swinney doesn't point out Galloway's comments, or ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit going on SportsCenter and saying the Tigers could lose to Virginia in the ACC title game, finish the season without a top 25 win and still be deserving of the playoff.
"At the end of the day, it's about the best four teams, and I don't care who Clemson's played, I can watch football. Who else you going to put in if Clemson loses?" Herbstreit said. "I would say that Ohio State, LSU and Clemson can lose, and unless they lose by 50, I think all three are safe and all three will make it into the playoff."
If Swinney is going to ignore the positives and focus on the negatives, that's his right, but there's going to be some criticism from people like Paul Finebaum and ESPN's Chris Fowler, who both recently called Swinney out for his "the world is against Clemson" stance.
And it's also fair to point out that Swinney's current comments are contradicting what he said before the season and earlier in the year. Swinney has always been one to claim last year's points and last year's achievements don't matter.
During fall camp he said: "We've got over 40 new people on this team, and we're supposed to be this great team? Gimme a break."
And on Clemson being preseason No. 1: "Unless they bring us a trophy and tear the concrete out over there and put the preseason champs up there, I don't think we're going to do that. So it just doesn't matter."
But now Swinney seems upset the Tigers have been judged by the playoff committee and the media solely on this season: "I could understand if we were a new kid on the block but we've been around here for a long time," he said.
Swinney has also changed his tune as far as awards. He praised his players earlier in the year for being unselfish and not worrying about stats or awards.
"That's just who we are," he said after the Tigers blasted Charlotte in September. "Obviously we could've score 100 points if we leave Trevor Lawrence out there and he could've had all kinds of stats and been written up for the Heisman this week. But we're not interested in that."
But Swinney said recently it's "a joke" Etienne isn't a finalist for the Doak Walker award and Lawrence should be in New York for the Heisman.
Everything Swinney says is calculated and his method clearly works. And as fired up as he has been lately, pick against Clemson at your own risk in the playoff.
However, if Swinney is going to continue to blast the media for the remainder of the season, Finebaum, Fowler and others are likely going to continue to blast him for his "little ole Clemson" method as well.
