I think the blogosphere eventually reached consensus on two central reasons for the Dabo Swinney hire:
1) Dabo Swinney could continue the quality recruiting established in the late years of his predecessor.
2) Swinney was the consummate motivator, the "intangibles man" that could bring fire back to the program.
Its difficult to argue that Swinney hasn't lived up to expectations in #1, at least on paper. 2010 was strong, 2011 is looking decent, and he managed to reasonably salvage a possible catastrophe in 2009. However, I think SportingGnomes raised an interesting point last week: can Swinney translate strong recruiting classes into strong teams built around a pre-defined, central strategy? I think it's really too early to judge, but I couldn't help notice how well UNC played on Saturday in spite of the suspensions. UNC has more or less caught Clemson in strength of recruiting classes the last couple of years, and it sure looked like they had talent to spare in key positions of strategic need.
What about #2? It's now two straight games the team has come out playing flat. Even during the Bowden era I can't remember seeing body language that poor with players openly upset at each other on the field, throwing their arms up in the direction of the coaching staff. Sure, they managed to pull together for stretches at a time in each game, but where's the discipline inspired by the coach as team leader? Where's the attitude of winning that Swinney supposedly brings? Where's the rest of the infectious intangibles Swinney shares with his players?
I'll tell you why you're not seeing it: intangibles are not magical predictors of future success. In contrast, a competent, intelligent gameplan instills confidence in players. Good gameplans, effectively communicated, result in winning games. Winning results in a positive feedback loop which strengthens confidence. There are no slogan-based shortcuts to creating a winning culture for a program.
Ultimately, the inability of Swinney to perform better than Bowden at motivating his troops isn't an indictment of Swinney himself, it's an indictment of the people who hired him based on a perceived ability to do something no one is capable of doing: winning games with words.
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