During his weekly Tuesday press conference, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney spent some time talking about college football big-picture wise and how the sport has lost its way in the era of an expanded College Football Playoff.

“We’ve created this system that’s not sustainable and we’ve lost our way. … A lot of coaches are going to get fired, because now it’s all of a sudden about the playoff, and it ain’t going to work,” Swinney said.

Swinney says he talked with Duke head coach Manny Diaz about this when Diaz was Miami’s head coach, and that Diaz recently reminded Swinney of something he said years back.

“It’s funny because Manny actually brought it up to me the other day,” Swinney said. “We were just talking, Coach Diaz. And he said, ‘You know, you probably don’t remember this, but I’ve never forgotten it.’ He was the head coach at Miami. We were in one of our meetings where we waste so much time.

“But we were in one of those meetings, and it was talking about this expansion of a playoff down the road. This is when there were four. … My message to the coaches was, ‘Well, I’m just going to say this to you guys. … I’m just telling you, the more we expand this playoff, the more coaches are going to get fired.’ Manny reminded me of that the other day. … And here we are.”

Swinney says his words have been proven true, as numerous FBS coaches have been fired this season since Week 1, including Brent Pry (Virginia Tech), DeShaun Foster (UCLA), Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State), Sam Pittman (Arkansas), Trent Bray (Oregon State), James Franklin (Penn State), Trent Dilfer (UAB), Billy Napier (Florida), Jay Norvell (Colorado State), Brian Kelly (LSU) and Hugh Freeze (Auburn).

“Coaches are getting fired at an alarming rate because it’s all about the playoff, and you have 136 teams for 12 spots,” Swinney said. “So, something’s gotta give somewhere along the way. Because if you fire your coach every year because they don’t get to the playoff or they don’t win a national championship, you’re going to have a hard time having a program.”

As for Swinney personally, when it comes to his own coaching staff?

Swinney says he generally doesn’t believe in firing assistant coaches during a season.

“I don’t like firing coaches in the season,” he said. “Now, if you’ve got a bad person, that’s a different deal. Or if you’ve got some type of dynamic where we can’t be in the room together, something like that – but we’ve got great people here. Great people. Good men. There’s no bad people here.”