Journalists may want to wait before asking Dabo Swinney uncomfortable questions after Clemson’s Week 1 debacle.
LSU smoked Clemson in a 51-10 landslide to start the 2026 season, but Swinney wasn’t ready to second-guess any offseason choices. The head coach didn’t take kindly to The State’s Chapel Fowler asking if he regrets any of his roster-construction choices.
“Chapel, you come with all these questions,” Swinney said with a laugh on Tuesday. “I tell ya, you’re the gotcha guy.”
One loss isn’t enough for Swinney to wish he built his team differently, and he challenged Fowler to remember the exchange if Clemson rebounds from the opening setback.
“No, I don’t. I don’t, man,” Swinney continued. “I regret being 0-1. I regret that. But can you ask that at the end of the season? The season ain’t over. I mean, we had one game. We got 11 more. What if we go 11-1? You promise me you’ll ask me that then.”
“Did you play football?”
Stephen Lew-Imagn Images
Fowler confirmed that he’d ask the same question at the end of the season. Swinney said he’d reconsider the discussion then before continuing to criticize the inquiry.
“Okay, good. I’ll answer it, all right? But I’m not answering questions like that, Chapel,” Swinney said. “I know that’s your role in this environment to be the guy that wants to create all the controversy and ask the controversial questions. If that’s who you are, that’s fine. I get it. But I’ll answer that at the end of the season. We played one game.”
Swinney then asked Fowler his own question when explaining why it’s too soon to reflect on offseason decisions.
“Did you play football?” Swinney asked. “Okay, well they give you 12 games. And at the end of the year, you count them up. That’s when those types of questions are fair. Not after one game, to maybe the best team in the country … We got 11 games to go battle.”
Clemson will play the next of those 11 games when hosting Georgia Southern this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
