After Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney mentioned that he believes there could be some “unintended negative consequences” stemming from a 12-team College Football Playoff format, Paul Finebaum had some choice words for the two-time national championship-winning head coach when the former was on ESPN’s “Get Up” Wednesday.
Paul Finebaum Blasts Dabo Swinney: ‘Dabo, That’s Just Plain Dumb’
Swinney outlined his thoughts on a 12-team playoff and its unintended consequences earlier in the week, stating he thinks coaches might sit their best players for “meaningless” regular-season games.
One of the examples Swinney gave was that top players might sit out the rest of the season to train for the NFL Draft if their team is “out” of the playoff with a 4-4 record. Similarly, he mentioned that a team that’s 11-0 might sit its stars for a rivalry game, knowing a conference championship win the following week would mean an automatic bye in the CFP.
Finebaum, obviously, disagreed.
“Dabo, that is just plain dumb,” Finebaum said on “Get Up” Wednesday. “What happened to you? You used to be a voice of reason in college football, but now you’re the ‘get off of my lawn’ guy. Everyone knows what we’re doing here. Everybody understands that this is essentially the NFL playoffs, and of course, there’s unintended consequences. That is not breaking news, Dabo.”
Finebaum went on to give Swinney some advice on what his role is in this system.
“Your goal isn’t to find problems with this system,” Finebaum said. “Your goal is to get back into the playoff, someplace you haven’t been in a while.”
ESPN’s Heather Dinich added some context to the importance of conference championships, given that the conference champions automatically make the College Football Playoff and the top four get a bye.
Dinich went on to point out that Georgia’s Kirby Smart did seem to echo Swinney’s sentiments but also pointed out that conference championships have never been more important. Non-champions have to win four straight games to win a national championship; something teams don’t really want to have to put themselves in a position to have to do.
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