Swinney on perceived bias: "I didn't think I'd ever live to see that day"

Swinney says the rankings don't matter at this point

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Nov 16, 2017, 6:53 AM

CLEMSON – Dabo Swinney didn’t know if he would live long enough to see a national bias in favor of Clemson.

Clemson jumped from No. 4 to No. 2 in the College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday night, setting off a firestorm of outrage on social media, in print, on television and online media.

Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt acted as if the rankings affected him personally, saying that the bias towards Clemson is out of control.

“Right now I see inconsistencies. I see straight entertainment benefit,” Klatt said on his tour of FS1 shows Wednesday. “Clemson at (No. 2) ahead of Miami and Oklahoma is laughable. Absolutely laughable. You line up the resumes and they’re not all that close. Clemson has two top-15 wins. Oklahoma has three. I don’t trust the committee anymore. The bias is out of control.”

Swinney laughed when he heard about it.

“I love that. That's great. That's beautiful. Boy, we've come a long way,” Swinney told TigerNet. “Now, we don't beat Florida State by enough and there's a bias. I didn't think I'd ever live to see that day. I haven't heard any of that stuff.”

However, Swinney said he doesn’t let the outside distractions affect his team.

“It's the same for us. We just want to take care of our business. We know, regardless, right now whether we're two or five, we're one of the teams that has a shot and that's really our goal every year,” Swinney said. “We want to be a team who has shot to win this league and if you have a chance to win this league and you figure out how to win the league, then usually you'll have a shot for bigger things. That's where we are.”

For those that get caught up in the weekly rankings, Swinney has a piece of advice.

Don’t.

“The rankings don't matter. I don't know why people get worked up about that stuff on November 15th because it's going to all play itself out,” he said. “You're going to play the games. I could see if they were going to declare a champion this Saturday. It doesn't matter. We're going to play games. We're going to play Miami. Somebody is going to lose. The game is going to go until somebody loses.

“There's not going to be a tie. All of these things work themselves out. You've got other matchups as well. That's what's great about college football, just when you think you've got it all figured out, you don't. We're just thankful we're in the hunt. We've earned it. It's not like we haven't played anybody. We've played a good schedule and we've earned it. At the end of the day, you win or you lose.”