Dabo Swinney received little respect in this ranking of the ACC’s football coaches.

On3 national college football analyst Andy Staples stacked up all 17 head coaches in the conference ahead of the 2026 season, and even after a highly disappointing 2025 campaign, Clemson’s two-time, national-championship-winning coach is lower on the list than you might think.

Not only is Swinney not ranked as the ACC’s best coach, but he’s not ranked as the second-best coach, either. He is ranked No. 3 in the league — behind Miami’s Mario Cristobal at No. 1, and a first-year ACC head coach in Virginia Tech’s James Franklin.

Swinney is Clemson’s all-time winningest coach, the winningest coach in ACC history and the first coach to lead the Tigers to multiple national championships. The Tigers have won nine ACC titles under Swinney, including eight in the last 11 seasons, while he has guided Clemson to seven College Football Playoff appearances.

Here’s what Staples wrote about Swinney, who is entering his 19th season (and 18th full season) as Clemson’s head coach in 2026, following a 7-6 season in 2025 that marked the second-worst record of his tenure:

“Clemson’s Dabo Swinney has the best resume as a college coach in the ACC and will go down as one of the best coaches in college football history, but his Tigers have slipped so much from their national title-contending peak that Swinney no longer occupies the league’s top spot after owning it for at least 10 years. …

“This is a tough one. If we reorder this list once all these coaches retire, Swinney easily slots in as the No. 1 college coach. (Note the adjective, Patriots fans.) Swinney has two national titles and nine ACC titles on his resume — including a conference title just two years ago. But it feels as if Swinney has been trending down since Trevor Lawrence left following the 2020 season. Last year, Clemson had nine players drafted (including two first-rounders) and went 7-6. He’s not the coach you’d trust the most right now to take a team to the College Football Playoff. Still, his Tigers are talented. He insists he’s not ready to go to the beach yet. He needs to prove that this season.”

Swinney’s four national championship game appearances are more than any other active coach, and Swinney and Georgia’s Kirby Smart are the only active coaches with multiple national titles. In 13 of the last 15 years, Swinney’s Clemson program has won 10-plus games. However, the Tigers have won fewer than 10 in two of the last three years while making the playoff just once in the last five seasons following a remarkable run of six straight playoff appearances from 2015-20.

SMU’s Rhett Lashlee and Louisville’s Jeff Brohm round out the top five behind Swinney in Staples’ ACC coach rankings.

First-year Stanford head coach Tavita Pritchard is ranked last — right behind second-year North Carolina head coach and six-time Super Bowl champion head coach Bill Belichick at No. 16.