When Dabo Swinney was named the permanent head coach at Clemson following the 2008 season, the rookie treached out to several high profile head coaches. Swinney wanted to learn as much as possible from veterans in the business to see how they ran their programs.
Mack Brown was in charge of the Texas program and not only was he the only coach who was willing to give Swinney a tutorial of how he ran a program, Swinney says he and Brown hit it off immediately.
“So, I reached out to a few people and Mack was the only one who said, ‘Yeah. Come on!’," Swinney said.
"I did not know him from Adam. I had called and left a message and he called me back like we had known each other forever.
“He just started telling me how he had followed what we had done during our interim time. He was happy and he was like, ‘Man, would love to have you guys out here. Come on out here.’ And I had hired Woody (McCorvey) and he knew Woody. The next thing you knew, we went out there, took the whole staff, literally everybody, strength coach, everybody. Everybody was gracious. Coach Muschamp was the d-coordinator. He was awesome. He was very gracious to us."
Swinney and Brown will square off Saturday in Chapel Hill. This will mark the second time Brown has faced a Palmetto State team and while he and Swinney never worked together, Brown clearly has had a hand in the careers of both head coaches at the two Division I schools in the South Carolina.