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The caravan of buses awaited to whisk the team from Winston-Salem, away from the wreckage of one of the most reverberating defeats in Clemson football history.

Away from that angry mob of orange-clad fans who wanted their coach fired before the buses reached the South Carolina state line.

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The final score was Wake Forest 45, Clemson 17. And it wasn't as close as the final score indicated.

Through three quarters, Clemson was down 45-0.

To Wake Freaking Forest.

[Tigerillustrated.com will release an exclusive, two-part VIDEO interview with Dabo Swinney walking us through the McFadden Building (old football offices) starting tomorrow. The clip below is a preview of what will be 40 minutes of footage.]

A first-year receivers coach named Dabo Swinney opted against the buses. Instead, he hopped in the car with his wife and three boys and spent the next four shell-shocked hours with them.

This was Nov. 1st, 2003. This was nine months after Swinney decided to leave an enormously promising career in commercial real estate because going to Clemson to get back into coaching just felt right.

Joining Tommy Bowden was his calling. All the signs seemed to point to it, including this boy from Pelham, Ala., seeing the sign for Pelham Road outside of Greenville after he flew in for his interview.

Now all the signs were pointing to Bowden, Swinney and everyone else being out of jobs. And quickly.

Not just figurative signs. Actual signs, placed in Bowden's yard by spitting-mad fans telling him it was time to go.

Kathleen Swinney remembers that ride back in 2003. She remembers them asking themselves: What have we gotten ourselves into?

"We were a little concerned," she said. "We were thinking, 'OK, we'll just move on in December.'"

If Clemson doesn't pull off the unthinkable the next week by upending No. 3 Florida State 26-10, it's probably over for Bowden after five years. Former associate athletics director Bill D'Andrea basically confirmed as much to us recently.

And then Swinney, then 33, has to update his resume thusly:

-- On Mike DuBose's fired staff in 2000. Not retained by successor.

-- Left coaching for two seasons to sell commercial real estate.

-- Lasted less than a year on Tommy Bowden's fired staff in 2003. Not retained by successor.

These are the type of stakes that would make most people shudder with fear in the moment.

This is the type of what-if that makes most people shudder with goosebumps in hindsight.

Dabo and Kathleen Swinney aren't like most people.

Yes, they were kind of scared back in 2003. But they were mostly at ease with whatever happened, even as their third boy Clay was just two months old.

Even as they were almost finished building a house, identical to the house in Birmingham they never got to live in because Dabo felt that calling in Clemson.

That week after Wake, as Bowden had to fight back tears at a press conference upon being asked if he believed he'd keep his job, the builder of the Swinneys' dream home approached with an awkward question.

"I don't really know how to put this. But if things don't go well, I've got a lot of people that want to buy this house."

Dabo's response: "I don't know if we're getting fired. But I know I'm moving into this house -- for a couple of months anyway."

They moved in and ended up living at 104 Sycamore for 14 years before building a new palace last year, just a couple miles away.

And now it seems like their forever home.

Not the house itself.

Clemson.

The story of Dabo's decade as Clemson's head coach is distinct mostly for the lengthy list of events and decisions that had to fall into place for him to get the interim job in the first place.

Kathleen's view of that list is distinct for her lack of jaw-dropping amazement over all those pivotal, now-monumental junctures.

"We just always felt like we were where we were supposed to be," she said.

It's remarkable to consider what had to happen (or not happen) to get them here in the first place.

After all those years as a coach and player at Alabama, Swinney had to clean out his office in Tuscaloosa after Dennis Franchione elected not to retain him.

After Franchione left for Texas A&M, Swinney was overjoyed to get a call from Mike Price about joining his Crimson Tide staff. The deal was basically done for Swinney to coach tight ends. Then Price left to coach his Washington State team one last time in the Rose Bowl. When he came back, he called Swinney and told him he had a change of heart. He was going with a more seasoned coach, Sparky Woods.

You probably know that the Price Era at Alabama didn't last long.

Through all that, Swinney was trying to get used to the real world while working for AIG Baker and criss-crossing the country leasing shopping centers. Watching Alabama games on TV was not a fun experience, because Swinney believed he should be on that sideline doing what he did best.

Not just the Alabama sideline. Any sideline.

Kathleen will always remember Dabo pulling out of the driveway to start his first day at work.

"As much of a blessing as it was for the 18 months he was there, his whole career was starting new and it wasn't what he had always been doing. I was just so sad for him. I went inside and I just started crying. The phone rang, and I can't remember the player now. But one of our players' mother was calling just to talk to Dabo, to check in, to tell him how much she loved him. And it just made me cry even more. Because I'm like, 'He's supposed to be a coach.'"

Dabo was traveling a lot, and one trip brought him to Anderson. He came with the late Kevin Turner, former Alabama teammate and father of current Tiger Nolan Turner.

They decided to take a side trip to Clemson to check out Death Valley.

Dabo called Kathleen.

"You're never going to believe where I am. Kevin and I just drove over here to Death Valley! To Clemson! It's so cool!"

Bowden was an assistant under Gene Stallings at Alabama for three years, the last in 1989 when Swinney earned a spot as a walk-on.

So the Swinneys watched Bowden's teams often in 2001 and 2002.

Then came the call from Bowden in February of 2003, after Rick Stockstill left to become East Carolina's offensive coordinator.

People told Bowden he was crazy for hiring a coach who'd been out of the business for so long.

People told Swinney he was crazy for joining a staff that had finished 7-5 and been hammered 55-15 by Texas Tech in the Tangerine Bowl.

Dabo came home one day and asked his wife: "What do you think about moving?"

Kathleen thought he meant the move that was already planned for the next month, to their brand new house in Birmingham.

"No," Dabo said. "What do you think about moving to Clemson?"

Bowden and his staff ended up surviving that 2003 season, chasing away those vultures by winning their last four games by a combined score of 156-48.

Three years later, Swinney had a chance to go back to Alabama. Rich Rodriguez had been offered the job and planned to accept. He wanted Swinney to come along, and his bags were packed.

Rodriguez ended up backing out. Ask Kathleen about this, and she doesn't make a big deal over it.

This was when the Tigers were preparing for the Music City Bowl against Kentucky. Kathleen was busy being a mom.

"I remember having some doubt in my mind about that being something we should do," she said. "I think if you talk to any coach's wife, we just have to have a different mentality. Because there's so many ups and downs. You just have to stay planted where you are with your kids and you really can't think, 'Oh, we might be moving' or 'We might be fired.'

"You can't stop living. So I thought, 'Oh, OK. We'll cross that bridge if it really happens.' ... It was Christmas. I had three little boys."

Around the same time, Dabo was up for the job at UAB and wanted it badly. He was set to interview and knew none of the other candidates would be as prepared. He had a full binder outlining his plan, and he'd already come up with slogans.

"Blazer Nation," Swinney recalled this week. "We were getting ready to build an empire."

Swinney was crushed when the AD called to cancel the interview. They went ahead and hired Neil Callaway. All Swinney needed was to get in front of that AD, but it didn't happen.

Around the same time, Nick Saban took the job that Rodriguez left. Saban called Swinney and offered him a huge raise and a title as passing game coordinator. It didn't feel right because Swinney didn't know Saban at all, and also because Swinney had six players committed who were about to sign with Clemson.

A year later, after the Tigers lost the Atlantic Division title with a home loss to Boston College but then pulled out a last-second victory at South Carolina, Swinney was in Myrtle Beach recruiting. Bowden called him and told him to come back to Clemson. Arkansas was in hot pursuit of Bowden, and if Bowden took the job he was taking Swinney with him.

"I remember being at the Central Rec at one of my boys' basketball games," Kathleen said. "Somebody came up to me and said, 'I hear y'all are going to Arkansas.'

"I'm like, 'What? No, I don't know anything. I'm just trying to do snack duty.' I didn't know any of that because Dabo hadn't called me yet."

Clemson's administration gave Bowden what he wanted, and the Arkansas plane left Oconee County Airport with empty seats.

Less than a year later -- well, you know the story.

Ten years later -- well, you know the story.

And you should also know this: The happy couple doesn't sit around thinking about all those close calls, all the junctions and forks in the road that could've led them down a different path and away from the opportunity of a lifetime that came Oct. 13, 2008.

It's clear now to everyone that all those fateful decisions, whether by the Swinneys or others, were the right decisions.

But Kathleen and Dabo don't need hindsight to make that conclusion; they've believed the whole time.

All the way back to that quiet car ride from Wake Forest in 2003.

"This is the 10th year since Dabo was named head coach, but this is our 16th year here," Kathleen said. "This is where I've raised my boys. This is home. I could really start to cry just talking about it. I have so many friends, so many memories. There's not a day that I drop the boys at Dabo's office where I don't go, 'Thank you God.'"

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