Dabo Swinney downplays talk of succeeding Nick Saban at Alabama

Someday Nick Saban will no longer be the coach at Alabama, and many have already talked about Clemson’s Dabo Swinney succeeding him in Tuscaloosa.

Swinney knows the talk is out there, but he’s not particularly eager to entertain it. In fact, the one-time Crimson Tide assistant did not sound like a guy eager to leave a successful program at Clemson to take on the sky-high expectations at Alabama.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re behind Nick or not at Alabama,” Swinney said, via Chris Low of ESPN. “Listen, I spent 13 years there, so I get it. I know exactly what that mentality is and something I’ve tried to always fight here. You don’t see that anywhere in our building, that it’s national championship or bust. Our team goals are to win the opener, win the division, win the state championship, win the conference and win the closer.

“Now, hopefully, this will be a job that will be hard on the next guy because we’ve created a standard. That’s what you want. You want to take over a job that has a winning tradition, has high expectations and has everybody fully invested. To me, I’d rather have that than take over a program that everybody is fired for a reason. We have all that and then some right here at Clemson.”

When it was brought up to him that few see Saban retiring anytime soon, Swinney certainly didn’t mind.

“Good, that sounds great because I’m as happy as a pig in mud here,” he replied.

The talk will probably never die down, but at least some close to Swinney don’t see him ever leaving. At least for the moment, the Clemson coach doesn’t sound at all eager to go anywhere, even Alabama.