During his weekly radio call-in show Monday night, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney fielded a question from a fan who admitted she’s “panicking a lot” while reading about how Clemson (4-3, 2-3 ACC) has “fallen from the ranks of the elite” and is never going to get back there.

The caller asked Swinney to tell her what his plan is and if she can be confident that the Tigers will be able to climb back to the mountaintop and be a championship team once again.

“I’ll give you plenty of confidence,” Swinney responded. “Let’s see here. There’s only three teams in America that have two national championships in the last seven years, and we’re one of them. There’s a lot of these teams that I guess a lot of people praise them — they need to find a way to win one, much less two. And we’re the same people that won those two. We went 35 years here without sniffing one. We’ve won two in seven years and played for a couple more, and we didn’t all of a sudden get stupid.”

Swinney says the Tigers are “just getting going, honestly.”

“But we’re not immune to the rough patch, if you will, or some tough breaks and all these different things,” he said. “But we’ve got a really, really talented group.”

Swinney added that his advice to the caller would be “don’t listen to that mess,” and while Swinney acknowledged “it’s really hard” to win a national championship, he’s confident the Tigers “will do it again.”

“Those are the same people that said we’d never win one, certainly with me as the head coach. So, I wouldn’t listen to any of that stuff,” Swinney said. “I don’t read anything, I don’t listen to any of that stuff, so I would encourage you to do the same and stay positive. You have every reason to listen to somebody who’s done it as opposed to somebody who’s sitting around talking about it and telling you that we can’t do it. And we can do it. We have done it, and we will do it again. But it’s hard. We’ve won three in 128 years. Most schools ain’t ever won one. So, it’s really hard.”

Swinney concluded by telling the caller to “enjoy the journey, be All In and hang in there.”

“Enjoy the great times and hang in there in the tough times, and in the end, you’re going to look back and you’re going to be like, ‘You know what man, this was a great journey, great ride.’ So, that’s the best advice I can give you,” Swinney said.

“We’ve got great people and a really talented roster. If you listen to all the other stuff out there, you’ll probably think we’re never going to win another game. But we didn’t get here by being stupid. So, we’ll be alright. I promise you. I don’t know if that helps you or not, but I’d just say hang in there, keep the faith.”

We have just added a new special to our store. Get the Two Pack of signed footballs from Clemson’s 2022 and 2023 classes and save $75. Thanks for your support of Clemson football.