Is this the season Clemson football becomes the closer?

Major-college football coaches get fired all the time. The end of Clemson’s 2010 regular season looked like Dabo Swinney’s time.

The Tigers went 6-6 and were drilled by arch-rival South Carolina 29-7. Swinney’s wife warned him, ominously, that then-Clemson athletics director Terry Don Phillips was waiting in the coach’s office.

The room was dark when Swinney entered, the door barely cracked. In his mind, Swinney was rehearsing his departure speech, prepared to tell Phillips he appreciated the opportunity.

Here’s what Phillips said:

"Dabo, I know you’re disappointed and there is going to be a lot of criticism of you and me. But listen: I’m more confident right now that you’re the right guy for this job than I was when I hired you. Just continue to do things as you’ve been doing them, and I believe in my heart all this will work out."

Phillips then gave Swinney a hug and departed.

Maybe Phillips got lucky or perhaps he was a visionary. Since then the Tigers have finished each season with 10 or more victories, including bowl wins over LSU, Ohio State twice and Oklahoma twice.

Monday, the 13-1 Tigers meet Alabama for the second consecutive season in the national championship game. Something is going very right at Clemson. The only remaining question is whether the Tigers have the offensive firepower and the precision to beat Alabama’s stifling defense.

Swinney sure believes. At Saturday’s media day, he said the Tigers might be the only team in college football equipped to beat the 14-0 Crimson Tide.

It’s undeniable the Tigers have changed perception. They were once branded with the label "Clemsoning," which roughly means the propensity to follow a huge victory with a perplexing loss to lesser talent.

These days, "Clemsoning" is about not being surprised to beat the elite of the SEC and Big Ten.

Swinney annually establishes five goals for his team. The words "national championship" never appear in those goals because only four teams qualify for the playoffs, and what if eight teams finish with an undefeated record? What is beyond the players’ control shouldn’t affect their play.

The goals read: Win the opener, win the division, win the state (beat South Carolina), win the conference and – previously – win the bowl game.

Except last season winning the bowl game – the national semifinal against Oklahoma at the Orange Bowl – wasn’t the final stroke. So Swinney told his assistant coaches he’d change the final goal to "win the closer."

"Now I can say if we hit all five goals, we’re going to win it all," Swinney said. "We have that chance Monday night."

Clemson has an abundance of offensive weapons to challenge Alabama’s defense. Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban has described the Tigers’ Deshaun Watson as the most dynamic quarterback in college football since the Carolina Panthers’ Cam Newton was at Auburn.

Now this one is about finishing. Recruiting has been prosperous, from Watson to wide receiver Mike Williams to freshman defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. The pieces are there.

Within days of Phillips protecting Swinney’s job in 2010, Swinney showed up at a media availability to deliver this sunny news:

"I know you’re all disappointed, but in 2020, this will be the best decade in Clemson history."

So far, so good. It’s time – to use Swinney’s own word – to be a closer.

Bonnell: 704-358-5129: @rick_bonnell

This story was originally published January 8, 2017 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Is this the season Clemson football becomes the closer?."