And the Valley Investigates: How Dabo Swinney Cusses

Dabo Swinney is a lot of things.

Husband. Father. Remarkably successful football coach. And he definitely wants you to know that he is a Christian. The man’s faith is a centerpiece of his football program.

And to be crystal-clear, we are NOT passing judgement on that. However, we do understand that the discipline of an ardent religious man can often be tested by the stresses of coaching football.

For lack of a better phrasing, football coaches are driven to use a lot of curse words. I’ve never known one that didn’t. In general, I don’t trust people that refuse to let the occasional bad word slip — they have anger issues. However, we know that Mr. Dabo is very ardent in his beliefs, and almost surely has found ways to substitute for those bad words. The ones you can’t say on television.

So what’s he substitute them with? Our crack intelligence-gathering team has the answers. The following was recorded at a series of Clemson practices:

“Will you catch the FLANGIN’ ball Tee!”

“We gonna sit around here pearl spittin’ or are we gonna run a drill?”

“Trevor that pass was a load of heifer horkin’ bullcork son!“

“Danny Ford, what kind of huddle we runnin’ here fellas!”

“You call that dog-blastin’ hustle! Take a lap son!”

“Well that’s a big load of FLIPPA ROONY!”

“Paul Johnson!”

These cusses were stuck between a rapid series of unintelligible frustrated grunts, so the context was mostly unclear. However, we have installed several deep cover agents to more closely observe Coach Swinney’s diction and report back with more specific instances of the coach expressing his exasperation.

“Well if that isn’t just a big ole’ load of dung-dung.” — When Dabo arrives home to discover Chick-fi-la only gave him 9 ¹⁄₂ chicken nuggets.

“What a gosh-darn, no-good, schleppin’ tomfool that boy is.” — Dabo when he learns one of his players slept in and missed a class.

“We are gonna be skinned and fish-fried like we done sinned before God Almighty.” — Dabo while watching film of Joe Burrow.

“Seems to me like we’ve got a dastardly rapscallion amongst ourselves,” — Dabo when Kelly Bryant tells him he wishes to transfer to another school so he can be a full-time starter for his last season of college football.

“I would dress myself up in garnet and black chicken feathers before I ever let that happen.” — Dabo when someone suggests to him that college football players should be compensated.