Five-star Philosophy
CLEMSON | When Dabo Swinney was making perhaps the biggest decision of his coaching career in January of 2011, looking for a replacement for Billy Napier, a supposedly sensible notion took root.
If Swinney went with a new-age offense, it would mean he wasn't all that serious about playing great defense. A more conventional offense -- piloted by, say, Ralph Friedgen -- would be much more conducive to stopping other people.
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Nine years later, how utterly foolish are those notions? Not just the notion that you can't marry a high-scoring offense with stifling defense, but the idea that Swinney was going to just concede to the belief that his defense couldn't be great if his offense was?
Not that there was absolutely nothing to the general thought of offensive-minded coaches devoting themselves so thoroughly to offense that playing defense was a relative afterthought. West Virginia fans would tell you that the Dana Holgorsen era was an example of such a disparity of emphasis bringing fundamental problems, and there are other examples out there.
But gosh, shouldn't we have known better than to tolerate such premises that were attached to this coach? The one who came from Ala-freaking-bama? The one who played and coached under a man, Gene Stallings, who made great defense the foundation of his greatness? The one who would just as soon disown his children as not be utterly interested in stuff happening on the other side of the ball?
Swinney's Tigers are leaving their indelible paw prints on yet another recruiting class, this one 2021, and it invites some reflection on what exactly has been the priority under this head coach who had the audacity to envision it all back when most everyone was questioning the decision to hire him and the decisions he made over his first two years.
From the 2014 recruiting class to the still-evolving 2021 class, Clemson has totaled 24 5-star acquisitions. That's most obviously significant in the sheer number of elite athletes that have and will flock to Clemson over an eight-class stretch; the Tigers produced a mere seven 5-star signees over a 12-class period from 2002 to 2013 (four of them in one class).
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