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Dabo Swinney is skilled at identifying his own narratives that are different from the themes being explored by the outside world.

A lot of it is rooted in his extraordinary motivational abilities, yes. But plenty of it is grounded in substance, too.

So while it was quite popular and even perfectly reasonable last week to forecast another 60-minute war between these two because that's been the rule, Swinney went against that grain in private.