Dabo Swinney keeps finding himself in the crosshairs of national lists, and the latest one puts the Clemson coach at No. 3 on RotoWire’s ranking of the “most hated” coaches in college football.
Swinney landed behind only LSU’s Lane Kiffin and Colorado’s Deion Sanders, a placement RotoWire tied to his willingness to push back against the modern direction of the sport. His public criticism of NIL and the transfer portal has made him an easy target for fans who see his stance as out of step with where college football has gone.
RotoWire was blunt in its explanation.
“He’s won big and then sermonizes about how he did it. The anti-transfer-portal, anti-NIL stances land as preachy in a sport that has moved on without him,” RotoWire said.
“Not every villain is loud. Dabo Swinney and Kirby Smart draw their share of national contempt simply by dominating - and, in Swinney’s case, by lecturing the sport about how he does it.
Sustained excellence is one of the surest ways to make the rest of the country want to see you lose.”
The outlet said the ranking was built from two equally weighted pieces: social fan sentiment and a 500-person fan survey. RotoWire said it used social data from Reddit, X and Facebook, and noted the list reflects national opinion rather than how coaches are viewed by their own fan bases.
At the top of the list was Kiffin, who RotoWire described this way:
“The sport’s original troll. Press-conference jabs and relentless social-media needling make him public enemy No. 1 everywhere but his own sideline - and the move to LSU in the middle of Ole Miss’ title chase only widened the audience,” RotoWire wrote.
The ACC was well represented, matching the Big Ten with six coaches on the list. Along with Swinney, the league’s names included Miami’s Mario Cristobal, North Carolina’s Bill Belichick, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, Pittsburgh’s Pat Narduzzi, and Virginia Tech’s James Franklin.
For all the noise around Swinney, the résumé at Clemson is hard to argue with. He has a 187-53 record, nine ACC titles and two national championships. Only one other active coach has more than one national title, which is exactly the kind of success that tends to keep a coach in the national spotlight, whether people like it or not.
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