Dabo Swinney coaching tree: Ranking every coach to come from Swinney’s management
By John Buhler
There are coaching trees, and then there is whatever is branching off from Dabo Swinney’s at Clemson…
While Dabo Swinney has had an incredible run leading Clemson for well over a decade now, let’s just say his coaching tree leaves a lot to be desired…
Swinney initially served as a wide receivers coach at his alma mater of Alabama throughout the 1990s. He first came to Clemson as part of Tommy Bowden’s 2003 Tigers staff. Fate would have it, he took over for Bowden as the interim in 2008. It took a few years, but since 2011, Clemson has been a program guaranteed to win at least 10 games annually. They are a national power.
But despite winning two national titles and eight conference championships, Swinney’s Clemson coaching tree has yet to yield anything close to a bountiful harvest. How bad is it? Check this out!
Dabo Swinney coaching tree: What college head coaches have served under him?
There are as many coaches ranked ahead of Jeff Scott than he had wins at USF…
I don’t even know what to say about Jeff Scott’s beyond disastrous tenure driving the South Florida Bulls into the ground. He may have taken over the AAC program during the COVID campaign in 2020, but he never won more than two games in a season. Scott was fired with three games left last year with a 4-26 overall record and an unthinkable 1-19 record in conference play.
Had this been a Power Five gig, it would have been a bigger deal over how poor a job Scott did as a head coach. Then again, his inability to get this rolling in the wake of the mediocre Charlie Strong era is probably why USF is so far away from going Power Five. I mean, they were a really solid Big East program back in the day, and were ranked No. 2 overall at one point in time!
For now, I-4 rival UCF has left them in the dust, as the Knights are joining the Big 12 with the likes of BYU, Cincinnati and Houston. All four of those previous mid-major programs have shown us in recent years a great ability to play up in their Power Five games. As for USF, the Bulls are just going to have to trust that Alex Golesh has all the answers Scott did not. He is no Coach Prime…
Scott may get one more shot at leading a team after coaching rehab, but that is wishful thinking.