Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney Focuses on Christ, Hopeful for 2022 Season

Published: September 7, 2022

Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney Focuses on Christ, Hopeful for 2022 Season

By Movieguide® Staff

As the Clemson Tigers football team gears up for another season, their head coach Dabo Swinney makes Christ their foundation.

Swinney and the Tigers hope to return to the college football championship game this year, after what many considered a disappointing 10-win season the previous year.

“We weren’t really very good (last year), but we just kept finding ways to win, and that’s what good teams do. That’s what culture does,” Swinney told TigerNet.com in August. “And even the games we lost, they still had a chance to win every game, and they just kept believing, even with the disappointment and adversity and challenges and injuries and all these things.

“They’ve got a good perspective, and I think had a reset on the appreciation of winning, what it takes to win and how small that margin for error is. I love their mentality, their mindset, and I think that’ll serve everyone well as we go through the season,” he added.

Promising junior quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei five-star freshman Cade Klubnik, the highest-rated quarterback in the class of 2022 according to 247Sports.com, looks to fill the void of Trevor Lawrence who was drafted to the NFL last year.

However, for both Uiagalelei and Klubnik, faith in Christ is the most important part of their lives, a lifestyle exemplified by their head coach Swinney.

Clemson’s culture of faith all starts with Swinney. Now at the beginning of his 14th full season as head coach, Swinney has built the Tigers into perennial national-title contenders (winning in 2016 and 2018), but he’s also done it while being very outspoken about his faith.

Movieguide® previously reported on Swinney’s faith:

Outspoken Christian and head coach for Clemson’s football team, Dabo Swinney, encouraged a 15-year-old fan to center his life on Christ during a radio show.

“The most important thing is you were created on purpose,” Swinney told a young man named Jordan. “You have a thumb print. There are billions of people in this world, and you are the only one with your thumb print. And God intended it to be that way, so you are the only one that can leave the imprint that He has given you.

“If you will build your life on a foundation of faith, then you will know true peace and happiness. If you build it on anything else, or seek happiness in anything else, then you are going to always be let down,” Swinney added.

Swinney also emphasized his reliance on God’s word and talked to the teen about God’s peace, even during times of hopelessness.

“One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Jeremiah 29:11,” Swinney said. “When I was 15 I had a lot of, man there was a lot of anxiety and like, ‘What is my future and how am I going to do this and that?’ But Jeremiah 29:11 says, ‘For I know the plans I have for you.’ Not that I think I know. God says, ‘For I know the plans I have for – not everyone – for you.’ Those are plans for good, not disaster. Plans to give you a future and a hope.”

Swinney continued: “I love that Bible verse because if you really grab on to that, you are going to have some challenges, you are going to have some disappointments, you are going to have some setbacks, you are going to have some failures and you are going to have some successes, but if you can hang on to that, God never says, ‘Oops!’ God never says, ‘My bad!’ Then again, if there is hope in the future, then there is power in the present to deal with whatever comes your way. There is nothing that is going to happen to you that you and God can’t handle together.”