Paul Finebaum Is 'Saddened' By What's Happening To Dabo Swinney
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Paul Finebaum thinks “it’s over” for Dabo Swinney at Clemson.
The ESPN college football analyst is suggesting that the two-time national title-winning head coach’s run is over for the Tigers.
Clemson fell to LSU, 51-10, in the Week 1 season opener.
“First of all, if you think you’re going to go out and get Chad Morris from the dollar store reject base and think you’re going to save your program, you’re not going to. I am just in shock at some of Dabo Swinney’s moves. Bringing Chad Morris in. Going with the quarterback that he did. It’s over for Dabo Swinney. I know that sounds hyperbolic. I know that sounds like oh, there’s Paul Finebaum screaming from the lawn, but it’s the truth. It’s been trending for a number of years. This team played for the national championship six and a half years ago against LSU. And mostly it’s been the bottom since then,” he said on Monday’s “Get Up.”
Earlier this week, Swinney was asked by a reporter if he regretted his offseason roster construction, given the Week 1 blowout loss.
“Chapel, you come with all these questions. I tell ya, you’re the ‘gotcha’ guy,” Swinney said to reporter Chapel Fowler. “No I don’t. I don’t, man. I regret being 0-1 right now. I regret that. … Can you ask me that at the end of the season, you know? The season isn’t over. I mean, we’ve got one game. We’ve got 11 more. What if we go 11-1? You promise me you’ll ask me that then?”
He didn’t hold back.
“We’ve played one game. One game, alright? Did you play football? OK. Well they give you 12 games, and at the end of the year you count them up, alright? And, you know, that’s when those types of questions are fair, to me,” Swinney said.
“You know, not after one game to maybe the best team in the country. Maybe the best team in the country, alright? Now, other people have good teams and coaches and things like that, too. So I give them credit. We’ve got 11 more games to go battle, and we’ll count them up. Then you can ask me whatever question you want.”
Finebaum ‘saddened’ by what Dabo has become
Finebaum admitted on Wednesday that he’s “saddened” by what’s happening to Swinney at this point in his career.
“I thought they were foul, and let me explain the question for just a minute,” Finebaum said. “(The reporter) Chapel Fowler is the son of Scott Fowler, who’s an award-winning, distinguished columnist in Charlotte. He has been there many, many years. And I say that to establish that he grew up the son of a real journalist who understands when a situation is critical you ask real questions.
“That was not a gotcha question. We all know what those are. We hear them all the time. That was a legitimate, fair, ‘Coach, do you now regret going with this quarterback who was a bust and is no longer in your lineup and led you to the worst defeat of your career?’ It wasn’t even hard. And Dabo goes into defense mechanism, avoidance, all the — you can call a psychiatrist if you don’t like my descriptions, and it was really troubling that he doesn’t get how bad this program is and how it’s being perceived. I mean that’s high school chicanery you do there.”
This story was originally published by The Spun on Sep 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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