JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For 12 consecutive seasons, Clemson won at least 10 games and during those six consecutive trips to the CFP Playoff, 10 wins were achieved in the regular season.
There is a different feel to December this season as the Tigers will take an 8-4 record into Friday's Gator Bowl matchup with Kentucky.
But a four-game winning streak in November has the head coach feeling good about the state of his program, even though the losses to Duke, Florida State, Miami and N.C. State were downright brutal and heartbreaking.
Swinney is his 15th full season as the head coach of the Tigers and his vision when he took over the job was to create a program that played at a high level on a consistent basis, not once every few years.
In a video courtesy of Clemson Athletic Communications, Swinney talked about the state of his program athletically and in the classroom, another arrow in the recruiting quiver that Swinney and his coaches will no doubt use on the trail.
“I know our record this year wasn’t quite what we want it to be, but still, we’ve been a really consistent team,” Swinney said.
“But we’ve built this program on belief. We’ve built it on integrity, we’ve built it on toughness and we’ve built it on people. So, you’ve just got to have the right people. You’ve got to get the right people involved, and then you’ve got to have a foundation that is built to last, and that’s what we’ve had here. And honestly that’s been our goal from the moment I got this job is to build a program of consistency – one that has always got a chance. Some years are going to be better than others, but we’ve been able to do that.”