**Editor’s Note: Time to take the 6-0 Challenge and make your Week 10 picks against “Joe vs. the Pro and the Hero.” Joseph Goodman’s popular college football picks feature, “Joe vs. the Pro and the Hero,” is adding readers to the action this season. Pick your Week 10 games here, and sign up for Joe’s newsletter to see how your picks compare to the experts (and Joe) as well as other readers.

________________________

This is an opinion column.

Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State once wanted people to know that he was 40. On Monday, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney pointed out that he wasn’t 12 years old.

Age is just a number, but a good rant by a football coach about the length of his life on earth can live forever.

What conditions allow for an unhinged rant by a sports figure to stand the test of time? Usually lots of ‘practice,” to quote the great Allen Iverson, in the art of momentary breaks from reality in front of a hot microphone.

On Tuesday, the king of the constructive rant, Alabama coach Nick Saban, turned 72 years old. In honor of Saban’s birthday, and in light of Dabo’s latest unhinged musings about himself and the team he coaches, let’s trick-or-treat our way through what separates a decent sports screed from an epic outburst worthy of the diatribe hall-of-fame.

Saban’s one-liner about reporters feeding his players “rat poison” in the form of positive storylines qualifies as college football literature. Rat poison, in the context of sports, now represents a specific idea. People will be saying, “I’m a man. I’m 40,” long after Gundy is done coaching. Basketball’s Rick Pitino once noted that “Larry Bird isn’t walking through that door,” and that quote is now applied to losses by teams across all sports.

Rants aren’t limited to coaches, of course. In fact, a nice haranguing by an athlete can set someone up for a life of post-career celebrity.

Tennis great John McEnroe once screamed at an official during Wimbledon, “You cannot be serious,” and that one-liner later became the title of McEnroe’s autobiography.

Will people remember Mike Tyson for his devastating punches or the time he blurted out that he wanted to eat children? It’s probably a toss-up, but I’ll go with cannibalism.

Dabo’s meltdown during his own call-in show certainly has potential to outlive his time in Clemson. He hit all the high notes during a five-minute meltdown about one of his favorite topics, ungrateful fans. Swinney told someone who identified as a Clemson fan named “Tyler from Spartanburg” to apply for the job of head coach at Clemson if he thinks he can do a better job.

That’s the pot of gold at the end of the ranting rainbow.

Tyler from Spartanburg sounded a lot like a South Carolina plant in disguise, but false flag or not he certainly knew how to pull blood out of notoriously thin-skinned Swinney by (A) quoting the Bible to be a jerk, (B) accusing Swinney of nepotism and (C) questioning if Swinney was worth his large salary.

Swinney gobbled it up like a kid out eating candy on Halloween.

“We won 11 games last year and you’re part of the problem, to be honest with you,” Swinney said.

Swinney needs to improve his rant quotability factor, but you can tell he’s willing to put in the work. He’s always been a grinder, and he’ll freely point that out without anyone asking.

“People like you who just love to destroy people with your comments,” Swinney said to Tyler from Spartanburg. “I’m sure you’ve never made any bad decisions. I’m sure you’ve lived a perfect life. I’m sure you’ve led a bunch of people.

“So, to answer your question, I started as the lowest paid coach in this freaking business and I’m where I am because I worked my ass off every single day, and I ain’t going to let some smart-ass kid get on this phone and create this stuff. So, if you’ve got a problem with that, I don’t care, all right? I work for the board of trustees, the president and the AD and if they’re tired of me leading this program all they got to do is let me know. I’ll go somewhere else where there is an appreciation.”

Dabo threatening to leave over a phone call by a fan? Now that changes things. That, sports fans, would put Dabo’s Clemson call-in show instantly on the Mount Rushmore of Rants. Of course, Swinney also once threatened to quit if players started getting paid and he’s still cashing checks, so I’m going to call his bluff on this one.

We’re at the point in the marriage between Dabo and Clemson fans where the spouses know exactly how to trigger an emotional response. A proper sports rant usually takes two willing participants. Reporters often unwittingly deliver the prompts, but what made Swinney’s tongue lashing different is that a fan was obviously trying to get a rise out of a coach in the middle of a tough season.

Clemson is 4-4 after last Saturday’s loss to N.C. State. Fertile ground for the sprouting of slander.

“I’m curious if you’ve ever read proverbs 16:8,” Tyler from Spartanburg said, “which talks about the pride coming before the fall.”

Swinney will be criticized for how he handled the call, but it’s hard to listen to the full question and not want to wish a little irritable bowel syndrome upon ol’ “Tyler from Spartanburg.” The caller rambled on and on in the hopes of scoring an all-time rant. Mission accomplished, but even I wanted to slap T-Money upside the head when it was all over.

“Something changed after 2018,” he said, “and there seems to be a lot of arrogance that came in, there’s a lot of friends and family…So I’m curious, why are we paying you $11.5 million to go 4-4?”

That answer is a simple one. Above all else, it’s to keep us entertained. Even in a down year, Dabo knows how to deliver the goods.

“If you don’t like how I run the program, don’t be a fan, I don’t care,” Swinney said, “but I’m the head coach and I’m going to do what I believe is right for the long term of the program, what’s best for the players, and what I think is best for the moment.

“If you’ve got a problem with that, that’s fine. But I’m not going to sit here and let you … I don’t give a crap how much money I make … you ain’t going to talk to me like I’m 12 years old. You gotta be freaking kidding me.”

Dabo wasn’t wrong, but some rants age better than others.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, wild times and rum. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.