While Dabo Swinney might be coming off his worst season in well over a decade, the longtime head coach has no interest in doing anything else.

After coming into the 2025 campaign ranked inside the Top 5 and with many picking the Tigers as a legitimate national title contender, Swinney’s team dropped three of its first four games. Clemson would rebound over the back half to finish the regular season 7-5, but a disappointing effort in a 22-10 loss to Penn State in the Pinstripe Bowl sent the team into the offseason facing a ton of questions.

While Swinney has taken a lot of heat from the media and fans alike for what has been perceived to be a failure to adapt to the new, ever-changing landscape that is today’s college football, the head coach remains as optimistic about his program as he’s ever been.

In an interview with On3’s Chris Low, Swinney insists he’s far from being done, despite many on the outside looking in suggesting otherwise. He’s even created a new acronym to go along with the belief.

“What I do know is that we’re taking Clemson back to the top. That’s right, ‘TCBTTT,’” Swinney told Low. “When I got hired (in 2009) and I said, ‘Hey, we’re going to win the national championship,’ everybody laughed at me. I’m sure they’re laughing now. But, again, it ain’t about what everybody says about you. It ain’t about what ESPN thinketh. It ain’t about what Paul Finebaum sayeth. It’s about what you see. A lot of people have always seen me as a (D-plus hire), but it’s about what we see. It’s about how we think.

“That’s the only thing that ever matters.”

Swinney has always been a glass half full type of head coach. He’s always chosen to focus on the positives rather than the negatives. At least in the public eye.

Since going on that run of College Football Playoff appearances that saw the Tigers win two national titles, Swinney’s program generally got the benefit of the doubt. Even after it was apparent the program was starting to slip beginning with the 2021 season, Clemson seemed to always get a lot of respect when it came to preseason polls.

However, last year’s 7-6 debacle has changed that. Unlike the past few seasons, the Tigers aren’t getting a lot of love from the national media as the team gets set to start fall camp in a few weeks.

It’s gotten to the point where some have claimed the game has passed Swinney by and that it’s time he went and did something else. Swinney vehemently disagrees.

Seeing as he is just 56 years old, the head coach maintains he still has plenty left in the tank, and that he’s not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. At least not before he adds some more hardware to Clemson’s trophy case.

“Hell no. I mean, I’m just getting going,” Swinney responded when asked if he was getting close to retirement.

“I’m right about the same age Nick (Saban) was when he got to Alabama. So I’m just getting going, man. I love a challenge, and again, all we’ve done is win. Sometimes, people want me to be like this guy or that guy, and I’m like, ‘What’s that guy done? How many championships has that guy won?’ I’ve got 11 championships. The next closest is Kirby, who’s got six. I’ve got seven playoff appearances. There ain’t another coach still coaching with seven playoff appearances. Maybe if I had some big personality on social media, I could push back on some of the absolute bull crap that people make up.

“But you don’t hear that from inside Clemson. People are happy here, and we ain’t close to being finished.”