Why Dabo Swinney used Noah Lyles winning Olympic performance to motivate Clemson football

CLEMSON — Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney has missed most of the Paris Olympics with preseason practices underway since Aug. 1.

Still, the Tigers coach caught Noah Lyles of the U.S. win the men's 100-meter run by .005 seconds to earn gold with a time of 9.784.

Lyles' narrow win over Jamaica's Kishane Thompson made him the first American to win the race since 2004 and inspired Swinney to show members of the team the race and motivate the players on technique and effort.

"I've used that clip on the 100 meter," Swinney said Tuesday. "It's one of those things we talk about all the time — it's not just effort. It's effort with technique. You're talking about 0.005 between winning a gold medal and not. Well, that's the margin of difference in winning some football games too.

"It's inches, it's milliseconds, it's a false step vs. a good stance to start. It's a punt getting blocked because you step under as opposed to taking the proper footwork and losing ground to gain ground to get your block. It's that small."

Clemson finished 9-4 in 2023, its fewest wins since 2010, to miss the ACC championship game and the College Football Playoff for the third straight season. He hopes the Tigers can work on the smaller details to avoid close defeats and a record below Clemson standards .

Clemson held its fifth preseason practice Tuesday as it gears for the season opener against No. 1 Georgia on Aug. 31 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Derrian Carter covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at dcarter@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DerrianCarter00

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson football: Dabo Swinney inspired by Noah Lyles, Olympic gold