Clemson Tigers coach Dabo Swinney wasted no time going after officiating again. Two days after being fined $10k for criticizing the ACC officials in the 46-45 loss to Duke, he wasn’t ready to let it go during Tuesday’s press conference. Swinney went after the system as a whole with only being about to challenge ten plays in the postgame report.
“Y’all don’t know anything about it. It’s behind a curtain,” Swinney said. “How dare we have accountability. “In the meantime, we got gambling issues going on, people being suspended, all that kind of stuff, right? Yep. I mean, refs are people too. It ain’t just coaches and players.
“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.”
Swinney circled back to the ten plays being challenged with better “judgment calls” being needed.
Dabo Swinney says the state of CFB officiating is a bad system that needs change:
“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
— Grayson Mann (@gray_mann21) November 4, 2025
”There’s also absolute flat out misses with no consequences,” he said. “We’re allowed to turn in 10 calls, alright? And so we had a game earlier this year that we lost. I had 14 I wanted to turn in, but I could only turn in 10. I thought eight were wrong, but got back… ‘Yep, missed it.’ Five of the 10 were wrong.
“I mean, these are game changing calls, obvious pass interference, not called that takes you off the field. But yeah, we just get, ‘this will be addressed with the crew’ and yada, yada, yada… okay, yeah … there’s no no public accountability.”
Swinney went on to talk about the system needing an overhaul. “It needs to be changed. There needs to be challenge opportunity and we need full time officials. If you’re going to have this type of stakes, there needs be full time officials.”
Clemson dropped to 3-5 on the season. The worst record through eight games in Swinney’s tenure. The Tigers welcome Florida State into Death Valley on Saturday (7 p.m. ET, ACCN).
