By Will Vandervort.

When he walked into the team meeting room at the McFadden Building on October 13, 2008, Dabo Swinney asked his first team at Clemson to do one thing – “Believe.”

He wanted them to believe first in themselves, something most of them lost when the Tigers were embarrassed by Alabama in the season-opener only six weeks earlier. He also wanted them to believe in their teammates, knowing no one can do it alone and each needed someone to pick them up. And he wanted them to believe in him because he believed in each one of them.

“When I first walked into that meeting room on that first day, I sat that word ‘Believe’ carved out in wooden block letters right in front of them,” Swinney said. “I pointed to the sign and I told them that’s what I do. I told them I believe in them. I believed in our coaches. I believe in our program.

“I told them I wanted them to believe in each other. Not to believe in me necessarily, but to believe in each other. Ever since then, I carry that sign to every team meeting and sit it right in front of the room for them to see it.”

Swinney’s first team, his interim team, did believe as they turned around what could have been a disastrous season and earned a Gator Bowl invitation by season’s end. It’s still the only time in FBS history that an interim head coach has taken over a program with a .500 or worse record at mid-season and taken them to a bowl game.

“All I could say is, ‘Hey, here is my plan. I believe. I just need you to believe. This is where we are going. This is how we are going to do it,’” Swinney said.

Since then, Clemson has not stopped believing. Even when there was a hiccup during a 6-7 campaign in 2010, Swinney and his players never stopped believing they could turn the program around.

In 2011, the Tigers stunned everyone when they won their first ACC Championship in 20 years. They also won 10 or more games for the first time in 21 years and advanced to the Orange Bowl for the first time in 30 years.

It did not stop there. Clemson has won 11 games in each of the last two years and it has a 32-8 record over the last three seasons, the best three-year stretch in school history. During that time the Tigers have knocked off traditional powers Auburn, LSU, Georgia and Ohio State.

“Coach Swinney changed this program, and he got us to believe,” former Clemson safety Jonathan Meeks said. “Now we have got everyone else believing and it’s going to keep going. Imagine 30 years from now what it will be like after winning a couple of championships and probably a couple more Coach of the Year Awards.”

The win over Ohio State in 2014 Orange Bowl Classic was even more special because it marked Clemson’s first victory in a BCS Bowl and its first in a major bowl since the 1981 team won the 1982 Orange Bowl.

Swinney also points out the Tigers did the unthinkable in a lot of people’s mind by winning 22 of their last 26 games following an embarrassing defeat to West Virginia in that 2012 Orange Bowl. He said few outside of the program thought they could get back to the Orange Bowl and few doubted they would knock off Ohio State.

“There were a lot of great accomplishments from this group, but winning the Orange Bowl was a huge deal, especially from where we were two years ago,” he said. “There was that eight-month stretch where anytime I got with anybody outside this media base, it was always about the (2012) Orange Bowl and that one moment. Everybody always wants to talk about that one moment so it was really special to be able to celebrate with those guys because a great majority of the team was in that locker room two years ago.”

But Clemson isn’t just winning on the field. The Tigers rank among the top 10 percent of all FBS programs nationally in APR score (Academic Progress Rate), the fourth-consecutive year the program has had a top 10 percent ranking.

Clemson is one of only five FBS programs ranked in the top 10 percent each of the last four years, joining Boise State, Duke, Northwestern and Rutgers. It is also the only FBS program nationally to finish each of the last three seasons in the top 25 of both polls on the field and in the top 10 percent of APR scores.

“We try to be the best in every area of our program and I am proud we have been ranked in the top 10 percent in the APR each of the last four years,” Swinney said. “We place great emphasis on the total package when it comes to preparing our young men for the future.”

Clemson and Stanford are the only two FBS programs with a top 10 final ranking in the USA Today Coaches poll and a top 10 percent ranking in FBS APR scores each of the last two years.

“Coach Swinney did a good job with us in staying the course and staying on track,” former linebacker Corico Wright said. “We did what we were supposed to do in sticking with the formula for success. We knew if we did that, everything else will take care of itself.

“We bought into what he was telling us. That says a lot about the coaching staff, the program and the players. It was not pretty at first and it may not have been cool to come to Clemson, but we wanted to come here and help change it. We have done that. We can’t thank Coach Swinney enough or the guys that came before us and taught us how to act and how to do the things you need to do to help the program carry on its traditions and to make it better.”