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Brian Kelly, Billy Napier, Dabo Swinney- Just A Bad Start, Or Are They On Shaky Ground?

George Wrighster

TAMPA, FL - JANUARY 09: Head coach Dabo Swinney of the Clemson Tigers reacts after defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide 35-31 to win the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Raymond James Stadium on January 9, 2017 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 686857421 ORIG FILE ID: 631369820

We need to talk about the way some of these prominent college football coaches flopped in week 1, and determine whether it was just a bad start, or if the coach is on shaky ground.

Brian Kelly

LSU came into the season ranked #5 despite finishing last year’s SEC slate getting blown out by Texas A&M and Georgia, and losing six players to the NFL Draft. The ranking was all based on hype… and there’s nothing wrong with hype if you can back it up. 

But last Sunday, with no NFL games and the entire football-loving world watching, Florida State outscored LSU 31-7 in the second half, and Seminole QB Jordan Travis personally murdered Jayden Daniels’ preseason Heisman hype.

Is this just a bad start, or is Brian Kelly on shaky ground?

That all depends. Outside of Georgia, LSU has one of the friendliest schedules for a supposed championship contender in the country. It’s completely reasonable to expect the Tigers to turn the page on this L and steamroll through the next seven games before they roll into Tuscaloosa on November 4th. 

This loss might be the humbling the entire Tigers team needs, head coach included. 

Billy Napier

Billy Napier and the Florida Gators could not have picked a worse time to get physically dominated by a shorthanded Utah roster. 

The Swamp Kings documentary that whitewashed Urban Meyer’s image and waxed poetic about the mid-2000’s championship teams just dropped. You can’t be out here giving people a reason to think about their ex.

Billy Napier is a good man, and a good coach- but these Florida fans want a bad man that gets the job done. 

Florida State’s last two games had them getting manhandled by the supposedly soft Pac-12, and the Gators went 0-4 against ranked SEC opponents last year. 

They’ve got issues at quarterback, on and off the field, and quarterbacks are supposed to be part of Napier’s specialty. 

I think this ground is shaky, and if the Gators lose back-to-back games to Vanderbilt, who they play on October 7th, that ground in Gainesville might just open up and swallow Napier whole.

Dabo Swinney

Clemson just got smashed by Duke- meanwhile former Clemson QB DJ Uiagalalei put up five touchdowns in his Oregon State debut. 

If you pay attention to the national media, you would think the sky is falling in on Dabo. You would never guess that this loss just snapped a 12-game winning streak in the ACC.

The reason for that is that Dabo has been in direct opposition to the national narrative that has been supported by a media entity that is increasingly made up of former athletes, and to be honest, we’re all sick of his bullshit. 

He’s not a bad man. On the contrary, he’s an extraordinarily good man that has confused his personal morality with an immoral structure of profiting off of uncompensated labor. It’s what made him say he may quit if players ever got paid, without a hint of irony that he’s cashing biweekly checks somewhere in the six digits. It’s also what has made him reject the transfer portal in an age when his school’s brand recognition is at an all-time high, while demonstrating the pinnacle of hypocrisy by not speaking against his school for flirting with jumping conferences for a bigger payday.

So yeah, if it feels like people are rooting for Dabo to lose, it’s because they might be. Some of that ground shaking in Clemson might be manufactured. 

But it could turn real if the Tigers start 0-2 in ACC play for the first time since 2010. Clemson has Florida State on September 23rd.