CLEMSON — Dabo Swinney recently received a piece of mail that caught his attention.
Clemson's football coach and his wife, Kathleen, were invited to the premiere of Nick Saban's new ESPN documentary, "Saban." Swinney said ESPN conducted a 30-40 minute interview with him for the documentary, and he briefly appears in the fifth of six episodes.
Swinney motioned his hands in a rectangle and then moved them up and down to mimic the card's drapes to describe how decorative the invitation was. He joked that it was so well-designed that his father-in-law, a printer, would've liked it.
"It's fancy now. We got this thing that came in the mail, and it's a really, really fancy, big, heavy card with drapes on it that says 'Saban' across it," Swinney said Oct. 20, emphasizing "Saban" and wiping his finger across the air to show how ornate the coach's name was on the invitation.
The premiere was during Clemson's off week, so Swinney and his wife contemplated attending the show in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Swinney "didn't think it was a good idea" to go, but he appreciated the invite.
"I was actually pretty honored that we got invited to the premiere in Tuscaloosa," Swinney said.
Swinney and Saban coached against each other in four consecutive College Football Playoffs, including three national championship games. They went 2-2 against each other, with Swinney earning the last laugh with a dominant 44-16 victory in the national championship game for the 2018 season.
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Swinney appears when the documentary features Clemson's 45-40 defeat in the national championship game for the 2015 season.
The Tigers had won the ACC for the second time under Swinney and were playing for their first national championship since 1981. It was a matchup between "little ol' Clemson," as Swinney referred to the Tigers at the time, and a Crimson Tide program seeking a fourth national title with Saban.
"We're not built for the top of the mountain. We're all built from and for the valley," Swinney said as the documentary set the stage for the game. "We're all built for the climb. Nobody gets to stay on top."
The game was a high-scoring thriller featuring 1,023 total offensive yards. Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson passed for 405 yards and four touchdowns.
"It was a back-and-forth game. They had a hard time stopping us," Swinney said. "It's just two teams fighting their heart out."
The turning point came when Alabama successfully attempted a surprise onside kick after tying the game at 24-24 with a fourth-quarter field goal. Jake Coker then threw a 51-yard touchdown to O.J. Howard after just two plays, giving the Crimson Tide a lead they wouldn't relinquish.
Swinney called the onside kick "one of the greatest calls ever" but that the play "still makes me want to vomit to this day."
"I tip my hat, because it was an incredibly gutsy call," Swinney said.
While that was Swinney's last quote in "Saban," the documentary goes on to feature the following season's national championship game, which Clemson won 35-31. Several individuals are shown debating whether Alabama would've won had Saban kept Lane Kiffin as his offensive coordinator.
Saban originally kept Kiffin for the Peach Bowl after he accepted Florida Atlantic's head coaching job, but then relieved him of his duties and named Steve Sarkisian as the Crimson Tide's play-caller for the game. Saban said in the documentary that he believed Kiffin had too much of his focus on the Owls to coach well in the national championship.
Nick Coppola covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA Today Network. Email him at ncoppola@usatodayco.com, follow him on X @Nick_Coppola__ and like his Facebook page at Nick Coppola, Clemson Sports.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Why Dabo Swinney said Nick Saban's invite to documentary premiere caught his attention