There’s an old cliché: “Success never sleeps.” Dabo Swinney is currently the embodiment of that adage.

Less than 15 hours after his team was crowned champions of the Atlantic Coast Conference in Orlando, Swinney addressed the assembled masses that braved the chilly rain to visit Littlejohn Coliseum and watch Clemson defeat Coppin State on Sunday. He said he barely slept and had not had much time to reflect on winning back-to-back conference titles for the first time in 28 years.

The tenor of his message fit the crowd perfectly. Specifically, it was his use of a three-word phrase that perfectly encapsulates the way Clemson fans feel their favorite program is perceived.

Little Ol’ Clemson.

That phrase resonates with a fan base that is at its most comfortable when it assumes the rest of the world is out to get it, that the elites in college athletics barely bother to flick their wrists at Clemson. Swinney gets his biggest applause when he references the accomplishments of “little ol’ Clemson” in spite of all the odds stacked against the Tigers.

Swinney has the ability to toe that line. He can easily navigate between being the mouthpiece of both a program raised on dirt floors and one that doesn’t take a back seat to anybody.

Case in point: In the same breath that Swinney spoke about how rare and special it is to win consecutive ACC titles, he also managed to throw in a shoutout to the tiny crowd that awaited his team’s arrival back on campus at 5:30 a.m.

“It was raining, so there was only like three people there,” Swinney said with a grin. “Three troopers out there standing.”

The humility in the picture he painted is genuine—just as genuine as the pride and confidence with which he talks about his team’s chances of winning the College Football Playoff. The same Swinney who lathered up the Littlejohn crowd by invoking the program’s underdog status told the media moments later that he didn’t consider his team an underdog, even if the matchup with Ohio State opened up with the Buckeyes favored by three.

“There are no underdogs in this playoff,” he said. “There’s no such thing. These are four teams that all could win the national championship, without a doubt.”

Swinney says he believes there were “five or six, probably, very deserving teams” that could have been invited into the College Football Playoff. Many of the fans that connected with the head coach’s humble message may have assumed Clemson would get the shaft from the committee after it underwhelmed in a few victories and lost to Pittsburgh, but that never happened.

On the contrary, the Tigers were vaulted up into the second slot after beating Virginia Tech, switching places with Ohio State in the process. Swinney’s program may still be “little ol’ Clemson” to some, but it is clear that the Tigers now get the benefit of the doubt in the rooms where decisions are made.

“I think that we’ve earned that,” Swinney said. “I don’t think there’s any question that that’s a product of what’s happened the last eight years. That’s what happens when you line up and play the best of the best, and you beat ‘em.”

Swinney now has to keep up the balancing act leading up to the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve. He believes he has a confident football team, and he is prepared to let anyone who asks know about it. He also knows he has a fan base that loves to feel slighted, so he might throw in that three-word reference every now and then—just to make sure they’re paying attention.

“I still think people see as just that little ol’ Clemson school,” Swinney said. “You know what? We understand that, and we look forward to playing on the big stage.”