An illustrious coaching heritage is embedded in the foundation of Clemson football. At the dawn of the 20th century, the Tigers were led by future College Football Hall of Famer John Heisman. Hall of Famers Jess Neely, Frank Howard and Danny Ford followed in Heisman’s winning tradition.

Now entering his 15th season (and 14th full season) as Clemson’s head coach, Dabo Swinney has already carved his name into that foundation, elevating himself amid a pantheon of Clemson greats by becoming the first coach in program history to lead Clemson to multiple national championships.

Swinney’s stratospheric start to his head coaching career placed his record not only among Clemson legends but also among the names of the winningest leaders in the more than 150 years of major college football.

With his final win of the 2021 season, Swinney reached 150 career wins in his 186th game as head coach. In terms of games played, Swinney became the sixth-fastest coach in FBS history — and the fourth-fastest in the modern era — to earn 150 career wins, trailing Urban Meyer (176), Gil Dobie (180), Barry Switzer (180), Fielding Yost (184) and Joe Paterno (184). Entering 2022, only 16 coaches in FBS history including Swinney had accomplished the feat within 200 games, and 14 of the 16 had been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, with the lone exceptions being Swinney and Meyer, both of whom are not yet eligible.

The 150th win came in Swinney’s 13th full season and his 14th season overall including his seven-game interim stint in 2008. He moved into third place in FBS history for the most coaching wins in the first 15 seasons of a head coaching career, trailing only Meyer (165) and Bob Stoops (160). Swinney will have the opportunity to take aim at both in his 15th season as head coach in 2022.

Though other seasons resulted in more hardware, analysts and observers opined that 2021 might have been Swinney’s best coaching job, as the Tiger mentor guided his team through adversity and attrition to overcome a 2-2 start to finish 10-3 and extend Clemson’s streak of consecutive 10-win seasons to 11. Clemson entered that October as one of 28 Power Five teams with two or more losses, yet concluded the season along as one of only two of those 28 programs to finish the season having reached 10 wins.

Swinney’s 2021 Tigers played seven one-possession games, one shy of the school record, and went 5-2 in those contests. The squad’s success came in spite of tremendous turnover and attrition, as 48 different players earned at least one start, eight more than started in the pandemic-impacted 2020 season. Only 23 Clemson players played in all 13 games, and only four offensive or defensive players started all 13. Between injuries and transfers, Swinney held aloft the 2021 Cheez-It Bowl trophy following a game Clemson finished without the services of 30 scholarship players from its initial fall roster.

A year earlier, Swinney’s squad accomplished its “double-double mission” in 2020, going 10-2 in a condensed season to give Clemson 10 consecutive 10-win seasons. Clemson became only the third program in FBS history to accomplish the feat and became the first school to win 10 games in 10 straight seasons as a member of the ACC, as only the final nine of Florida State’s record 14-straight 10-win seasons came during the Seminoles’ tenure in the ACC.

The pandemic-affected 2020 campaign was a historic one for the Tigers both as a team and individually, as quarterback Trevor Lawrence ascended to become the winningest quarterback in school history (34-2) and running back Travis Etienne added the ACC’s all-time rushing crown (4,952 yards) to his arsenal of school and conference records. Etienne’s versatility as a rusher and receiver earned him consensus All-American honors as an all-purpose selection, while Lawrence became the second Heisman Trophy finalist in program history, tying Deshaun Watson (second in 2 ...