Dabo Swinney has never been a fan of the College Football Playoff, even though his program has benefitted from it more than anyone.
Clemson is the only program in the CFP era to play in six consecutive playoffs. Four times the Tigers have reached the championship game and twice they won it all.
But Swinney isn’t naïve to understand what kind of toll it has on his players. Making deep runs into the playoff means the Tigers have played two and sometimes three more games a year than the average team. That is three more games and many more practices in which the players are subjected to the brutal and physical nature of the game.