After the title, moments of chaos and magic for Dabo Swinney
— -- TAMPA, Fla. -- At 12:15 a.m. ET, they came into the grandstands looking for Kathleen Swinney and Carol McIntosh. "We hate to have to do this," the College Football Playoff security detail told Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney's wife and mother. "But if you want to get out there when the game ends, we need to move you closer to field."
"I know how it works," Kathleen Swinney recalled an hour later. "But man, we were still losing!"
There were five minutes remaining in the College Football Playoff National Championship presented by AT&T, and yes, Clemson was losing to Alabama 24-21, the same score that the wonky, often sloppy, game had been stuck on since early in the fourth quarter.
"Of course just about the time we started moving down to where we could only really see the game on the big TV screen, that's when everything kind of went crazy," McIntosh said. "And it really did go crazy, didn't it?"
Indeed it did. Over the final 4:38 of the game, the teams would score three touchdowns and trade the lead three times, with the Tigers ultimately ending the night and the season on top the sport via a 35-31 final score. That insanity triggered a frenetic schedule that would continue for the coach, his family and his team that would carry on until well after most of everyone else on the East Coast was fast asleep.
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