Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008

Swinney focuses on rebuilding

Tigers coach says he is trying to repair a team beset by negativity this year

CLEMSON — After buying a patio home after graduating college, Dabo Swinney, his wife and mother-in-law went to a garden center and bought a $19 maple tree.

The interim Clemson coach said the “Charlie Brown”-sized tree since has matured to dwarf the Tuscaloosa home.

“All I know is we planted it the right way,” Swinney said.

“I didn’t know how big it was going to be or how long it was going to take. But it just kept growing and blossoming.”

In the same sense, Swinney suggests he is planting seeds with the Tigers (4-5, 2-4 ACC), even though he knows he might not be around to monitor the progress.

Athletics director Terry Don Phillips met with Oklahoma defensive coordinator Brent Venables on Tuesday, the first known movement in the coaching search.

Last Friday, Phillips interviewed fired Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin in Detroit, a source close to Kiffin confirmed Wednesday.

Starting with Saturday’s noon game against Duke (4-5, 1-4), Swinney has three contests remaining in his audition for the Clemson job — a position he is unlikely to keep barring a spotless finish.

The Tigers have to win out to reach a bowl game, and many coaches in Swinney’s position would be dropping the hammer on their players and staff to elicit one final push that could influence the hiring decision.

Yet Swinney has taken the opposite approach, seeking ways to expunge the negativity that had permeated the locker room during a season of disappointment.

He believes Clemson is seeing gradual results; the offense has scored 17, 27 and 27 points against the ACC’s upper-echelon defenses after tallying 24 combined in the final two weeks of the Tommy Bowden/Rob Spence era.

It could be argued Swinney’s audition has not come under the fairest of circumstances, but he said he has not allowed the bottom line to alter his view of what must be done to rectify Clemson’s ills.

“Hopefully the scoreboard will reflect the things I want it to reflect — which is wins — but there’s a bigger picture,” Swinney said. “I’m trying to do things the right way and help them through a difficult situation, teach them some lessons they’ll hopefully carry the rest of their lives and finish on a positive note.

“Everything you do on the offseason, you talk about finishing. Well, let’s finish.”

Thus, Swinney insisted his chief task during Clemson’s stretch run will be coaching attitude. To convey this, Swinney told the team a story.

Three people were asked what they would want others to say about them as they lie in their caskets.

One wanted to be known as a family man. The other a successful businessman.

“The third guy didn’t answer as quickly,” Swinney said. “He said, ‘Well, if it was me, I would hope those people would say, ‘Look at that sucker, he’s moving! Because I would want life.’

“That’s what we’ve got. We’ve got life. We’re still moving. Every-body’s got their opinions, but we’ve got life. We may be in a rut, but we’re still moving.”

The same might be said for Swinney’s chances of retaining the job. But don’t worry about him, though, the coach said, because the focus should be on the players.

“I can clean gutters and make a living doing that,” he said. “And I’ll do it with a good attitude.”

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