Dabo Swinney rips ACC officiating process, calls for ‘accountability’ from refs
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney showed up to his weekly news conference admittedly still “salty” about a controversial call in Saturday’s home loss to Duke.
He used that pass interference penalty, which went against Clemson in a 46-45 loss, as a launching-off point for a lengthy rant on the state of college football officiating and what he sees as a troubling lack of “accountability” for referees.
“Coaches get crucified, fined,” Swinney said Tuesday. “Players get crucified, held to this unrealistic accountability standard. But refs have zero accountability.”
“Well, they do, but it’s behind a curtain. They get to go home and drink a beer and get on with their life and just leave the carnage left behind that affects a lot of people — people losing jobs. ... That system needs to change.”
Fallout from late pass interference call lingers
During Saturday’s home loss to Duke, Clemson had the Blue Devils backed up into a 4th-and-10 on Clemson’s 18-yard line with 49 seconds remaining. If the Tigers (up 45-38) got a stop, they would’ve been able to run out the clock and win the game.
But after Duke quarterback Darian Mensah’s pass toward a receiver in the middle of the field fell incomplete, referees flagged Clemson cornerback Avieon Terrell for pass interference. The 15-yard penalty gave Duke a first down at Clemson’s 3.
Replays showed both players were tangled up with each other at various points of the route (Terrell early in the play, the Duke receiver later in the play). NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay, in a social media post, said he believed it was the correct call.
Duke scored on the very next play to make the score 45-44 with 40 seconds left then executed a successful two-point conversion to go up 46-45. Clemson could not score on a final desperation drive and lost, dropping to 3-5 (2-4 ACC).
Swinney ripped the call postgame, calling it one of the worst he’s seen in his coaching career. The ACC publicly reprimanded Swinney on Sunday and fined Clemson athletics $10,000, which Swinney indicated he will pay.
Swinney doubled down on his comments during his Sunday teleconference and revealed on his radio show that the ACC, upon review, stood by its pass interference call in the moment and did not admit any error on the play.
But Tuesday was a different level, as Swinney went on one of his biggest rants of the season, criticizing the ACC’s call review process as being done “behind a shadowy curtain” and saying the entire setup of college officiating needs to change.
“In the NFL, they’re not part-time refs,” Swinney said. “They (college refs) need to be full-time refs. It needs to be a job. And there needs to be one leader and one voice.”
The NCAA has a national coordinator of officials, Steve Shaw, but individual conferences also have football official supervisors. Swinney complained last year about how having SEC refs for the Clemson-South Carolina game impacted small parts of the game, since they called games differently than ACC refs.
Dabo on the ACC’s ‘behind a curtain’ review process
Swinney said referees also need to face “public accountability.” Currently, ACC schools can send in up to 10 plays for review to ACC coordinator of football officials Al Riveron and his staff.
That process is usually done on Sundays, and Riveron replies on Mondays. But the media isn’t aware of those verdicts, Swinney said, because the process is done privately via email instead of publicly (like pro leagues such as the NBA do).
“They’re on the field, they’re in the arena, but they’re the only ones in the arena that have no consequences publicly,” Swinney said of refs. “Or, God forbid, you get to pay a fine because you criticize performance. But yet everybody else can be criticized. Everybody. It’s a bad system, the way it’s set up.”
Swinney said there needs to be an on-field challenging process for “egregious calls in certain situations” because the stakes are too high in a sport where schools are spending big money football and are quick to move on from coaches if they don’t see immediate success in the portal and expanded College Football Playoff era.
‘”There’s a lot of stake, and there’s not consequences,” Swinney said.
Swinney also remained frustrated about an offensive pass interference call that went against Clemson receiver T.J. Moore during the team’s last-minute drive.
On the play in question, QB Cade Klubnik threw an incomplete pass to receiver Antonio Williams and Moore was called for offensive pass interference, which backed Clemson up to its own 13 with 34 seconds to go and no timeouts.
Replays appeared to show Moore bumping into the defender but not interfering with him. Swinney said the ACC agreed with Clemson that it was the incorrect call. He used it as another example of the “critical” errors refs are making.
Swinney also revealed that after one of Clemson’s other losses this season (outside of Duke, Clemson has lost to LSU, Georgia Tech, Syracuse and SMU), he had 14 plays he wanted to send in to the ACC for review. He was limited to 10.
“I thought eight were wrong,” Swinney said. “Got it back. ‘Yep, missed it.’ Five of the 10 were wrong. And, I mean, these are game-changing calls. ... But we just get a, ‘This will be addressed with the crew,’ and yada, yada, yada.”
Swinney, who said he might get fined again for his Tuesday comments (which were even sharper and more direct than his Saturday comments), joked that he’s considering paying the school’s $10,000 institutional fine with coins.
“I think I’m just gonna get some pennies and mail them in a box,” Swinney said.
Next Clemson game
- Who: Clemson (3-5, 2-4 ACC) vs. Florida State (4-4, 1-4 ACC)
- When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8
- Where: Memorial Stadium in Clemson
- TV: ACC Network
- Betting line: Clemson by 3 points
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 1:12 PM.
