Clemson is best known as an ACC powerhouse. So whenever Dabo Swinney talked about the Tigers as an underdog program, people didn’t really believe him. But many ACC schools, including Clemson, are now under serious financial pressure. That reality is making the head coach’s earlier warnings much harder to ignore.
For almost a decade, Clemson lived in the national spotlight, beating brands like Ohio State and Notre Dame in big games. That success made Swinney’s “little ol’ Clemson” talk sound like a joke. Few people thought he was actually warning about money and what it takes to keep winning at that level.
According to reports, Clemson’s debt has now climbed past $1.15 billion. It comes at the same time Dabo Swinney has been openly complaining about the unchecked spending race happening across college football. On Greg McElroy’s podcast, he pushed back against the idea that the Tigers belong in the same financial class as the sport’s biggest spenders…