Clemson coach Dabo Swinney is still fuming over the officiating in Saturday’s loss to Duke, and he went on an extended rant about the state of college football officiating on Tuesday.
Swinney fumed at the lack of accountability among college officials, and called on the NCAA to hire full-time referees. He added that officials should have to face the same heat players and coaches do if they make on-field errors.
“There’s a system of accountability, but y’all don’t know anything about it. It’s behind a curtain. How dare we have accountability?” Swinney said. “In the meantime, we’ve got gambling issues going on, people being suspended, all that kind of stuff. Refs are people too. It ain’t just coaches and players, and if they’re a part of the game, then by God, they ought to be a part of the game, and they ought to be a part of the accountability and they ought to be a part of the consequences, not just behind some shadowy curtain. They ought to have to answer for it.
“We had a game earlier this year, I had 14 (calls) I wanted to turn in, but I can only turn in 10. 5 of the 10 were wrong. These are game-changing calls. … We just get ‘this will be addressed with the crew.’ Okay. But there’s no public accountability. That’s the system. The system needs to change. There needs to be challenge opportunity, and we need full-time officials. If you’re going to have these kinds of stakes, it needs to be full-time officials.”
Dabo Swinney says the state of CFB officiating is a bad system that needs change:
— Grayson Mann (@gray_mann21) November 4, 2025
“In the meantime we got gambling issues going on and people are being suspended…refs are people too. If they are a part of the game they ought to be part of the accountability and consequences.” pic.twitter.com/6AMqIIp2VV
Swinney was livid over a late pass interference call that kept Duke alive in Saturday’s game. Clemson’s Avieon Terrell was called for pass interference, though it looked like Duke WR Que’Sean Brown was responsible for the bulk of the contact. The call nullified a turnover on downs, and the Blue Devils wound up scoring a touchdown and winning 46-45.
This has not been the year Swinney envisioned, and the stress seems to be coming across in his demeanor. The Tigers are 3-5 after Saturday’s loss, so it makes sense that his frustration is boiling over.
