Mark Packer didn’t hold back this week on Packer and Durham on ACC Network when talking about the people that were “trashing” Clemson following its 10-3 loss to eventual national champion Georgia in the two teams’ season-opener at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte on Sept. 4, 2021.
“Let’s be completely transparent. There were people trashing Clemson after Week 1 because they had a bias,” Packer said. “They had a narrative that they wanted to sell, and it had nothing to do with the Atlantic Coast Conference. Let’s be completely honest.”
Clemson (10-3, 6-2 ACC) rebounded from a 2-2 start in the month of September and finished the season on a six-game winning streak to record at least 10 wins for a school-record 11th consecutive season.
Clemson became only the third program in history to post 11 consecutive 10-win seasons, joining Florida State (14 from 1987-2000) and Alabama (14 from 2008-21). Clemson is the first school to win 10 games in 11 straight seasons as a member of the ACC, as only the final nine of Florida State’s 14 straight 10-win seasons came during the Seminoles’ tenure in the ACC.
With a 20-13 victory over Iowa State in the Cheez-It Bowl to conclude the 2021 campaign, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney earned his 150th career win in his 14th season (including an interim stint in 2008) to move past Barry Switzer (149) for sole possession of the third-most wins through the first 15 seasons of a coaching career in FBS history, while Swinney also joined Urban Meyer (165) and Bob Stoops (160) as the only coaches in FBS history to win 150 games in the first 15 seasons of a head coaching career.
Under Swinney, the Tigers have won seven ACC Championships, made the College Football Playoff six times in the eight years of the playoff’s existence and captured national titles in 2016 and 2018.
Despite all of the accomplishments, some still have an agenda against Swinney and Clemson, and Packer called out the people that like to bash Swinney and the program he has built out of “spite.”
“And you know what, some of those idiots are still beating that same drum, and it’s laughable,” Packer said. “Dabo Swinney has built a power. That’s what it is. You don’t have to love them. You don’t have to have the pom-poms out for them. But some of the trash comments that are made are done out of spite, and being really quite frankly, stupid.”
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