CLEMSON — It all started on Jan. 1, 1979. To Clemson assistant head coach Dabo Swinney it is simply remembered as “The Stand.”

It was fourth-and-goal from the one-foot line in the 1979 Sugar Bowl between No. 1 Penn State and No. 2 Alabama. The Nittany Lions had the ball and seemed destined to tie things at 14 late in the fourth quarter when fullback Matt Guman plowed into the line. But in what has become known as the greatest tackle in the history of college football, Alabama’s Barry Krauss stood Guman up and Murray Legg came along to finish him off. Krauss hit Guman so hard, he knocked himself unconscious and temporarily lost feeling in his extremities.

To 9-year-old Dabo Swinney, who remembers being at home in Birmingham, Ala., watching the game on television, it forever linked him to the Alabama football family.

“I will never, ever forget the goal line stand in the 1979 Sugar Bowl against Penn State,” he said. “When Barry Krauss and Rich Wingo and all of those guys stopped them on fourth down there to win the game. There are a lot of memories.”

Before coming to Clemson in 2003, the majority of Swinney’s football memories have centered on the University of Alabama. Not only did he grow up pulling for the Crimson Tide, but he eventually went on to play and then coach for them. He was 33 years old before he even left the state.

“Probably the first experience for me was watching them on T.V. on Sunday mornings watching the Coach (Paul ‘Bear’) Bryant Show and him having those Golden Flake Potato Chips and that Coke sitting out there and he sitting there saying, ‘That’s Danny Ford from Gadsden, Alabama.’ You know how he would talk,” Swinney said. “I could hardly understand him as I was sitting right next to the T.V.

“I just loved Coach Bryant and I loved everything about him. I loved watching Alabama on T.V. and I didn’t miss a game. I would listen on the radio. My first memories of Alabama as a kid, and you know I’m the baby of three boys, my whole family was pulling for Alabama and that’s all they would talk about. They taught me ‘Roll Tide’ before anything else.

“Just sitting around as a family and just watching the Alabama-Nebraska game, I remember all the Alabama-Penn State games, Alabama-Southern Cal, just some great, great match-ups.”

And now he can add Alabama-Clemson to that long list, though in this one he will not being pulling for his Crimson Tide.

Swinney, and the only other team he has ever associated himself with, will face the 24th-ranked Crimson Tide Saturday in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome as part of the Chick-fil-A College Kickoff. The game is scheduled to kick off at 8 p.m. and will be broadcast nationally on ABC (WLOS TV-13).

“I grew up wanting to play at Alabama and it was a definite dream of mine that I was able to fulfill. I love the Crimson jersey,” Swinney said. “I haven’t seen them play since the last game I coached them in… I will look over there and say ‘Man, that’s a Crimson jersey over there. I wore that for a long time.’ I took a lot of pride coaching there and playing there, but like I said, that’s not me anymore.

“I don’t have anything invested with those guys. My sweat, work and blood are shed here with all these players and these coaches, spending 16 or 17 hours a day. That’s just a fun side note to it.”

But it’s a note that can’t go unnoticed. Before Clemson, Swinney invested just about all of his time to the Tide. A 1993 graduate of Alabama, he was a walk-on, who went on to earn a scholarship, while lettering in football from 1990-92. He was a part of four teams that went to bowl games, two that won the SEC Championships and one that beat Miami in the 1993 Sugar Bowl to win the program’s last national championship.

“That was my last game. I played my entire life growing up, and I will never forget standing on that field and looking up at that clock winding down and saying ‘Man, this is it,’” Swinney said. “But I wasn’t just thinking that was it. To be a national champion was an awesome moment for me and is something I will never forget.”

Swinney did not leave Alabama after that, however. He stayed at the school and served as a graduate assistant from 1993-’95 before landing a position on the staff fulltime as a wide receivers and tight ends coach in 1996. He coached the tight ends again in 1997 and then the wide receivers from 1998-2000 before leaving football all together to pursue other business opportunities.

Three years later his old receivers coach, Tommy Bowden, talked him into getting back in the business when a spot opened up on his Clemson staff in 2003. For the first time in his life, Swinney was now working and pulling for somebody else to be better than his Crimson Tide, while also joining the ranks of a long list of former players and coaches that have significant ties to both schools.

“If you look at these two programs, and they have not played since 1975, but the similarities and the ties are really extraordinary if you really look at and study it – at least from my perspective,” Swinney said. “Having played for Coach Bowden at Alabama, and they leave and Woody McCorvey comes in from Clemson and is my new receivers coach. Then here is Bill Oliver, my special teams coach and also the defensive coordinator, and then I coach with Curley Hallman, who coached here, Charlie Harbison, Ellis Johnson, Hootie Ingram was our AD at Alabama and he obviously patented the Tiger Paw here.

“Then of course there is Danny Ford and Frank Howard, so it is really unique the ties that cross between Alabama and Clemson. That adds to it. It’s going to be a lot of fun and I would love to see Alabama and Clemson play more often.”

Since his time at Clemson, Alabama head coach Nick Saban has tried to persuade Swinney back to his roots with some very lucrative offers, but with his wife Kathleen and their three boys – Will, Clay and Drew – he says he still has things to accomplish here at Clemson and who knows, maybe he will create a few more memories for both he and his family to cherish for years to come.

“I was honored that Coach Saban offered me the opportunity to come home and be a part of his staff, especially since he doesn’t really know me… When this is your job and your livelihood, you have to make business decisions and if I had made an emotional decision, I would be in Tuscaloosa right now getting ready to hopefully get beat by Clemson,” Swinney joked. “Obviously, it would have been more money and going home, and those are two factors, but I don’t think those should be the two factors in my decision. The right reasons weighed heavily towards staying here at Clemson.”

And he has made some good memories here to prove it.