The Clemson Tigers and head coach Dabo Swinney are fading away as collegiate football enters a new era.
College football is now characterized by the transfer site and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) payments, in what appears to be an overnight transformation.
Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers have acquired zero transfer portal players
As another transfer portal window closes, Swinney and the Tigers have made no substantial transfer portal acquisitions, much alone any at all.
Thirteen players have departed Clemson through the gateway, and the Tigers have made no effort to replace them. The only two players departing Clemson with On3 ratings above three stars are defensive backs Andrew Mukuba and Toriano Pride.
Swinney has been openly critical of the portal and he doubled down on his conviction in an article from 247Sports.
“We have conviction. You are never going to make (everyone happy), there is always going to be criticism, especially when you have success, which is good, because people care, that is fine…. we’re not sitting here today – I would have been long gone, a long time ago, if I ran this program the way everybody else wanted me to run it. I wouldn’t be sitting here,” Swinney said.
“At the end of the day you have to have conviction in what you believe in as leader and understand that some people are going to like you and some people are not going to like you and some are going to believe in what you want to do and some aren’t and that just comes with it. But at the end of the day you have to do things with the way you believe and we have a process that we believe in and if I was somewhere else my process would probably be different, but we have an established culture.”
Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers’ refusal to adapt has shown on the field
The Clemson Tigers struggled with a similar lack of portal use entering the 2023 season. For the first time since 2010, the Tigers failed to win ten games.
Losses to teams that the Tigers had no issue with throughout the Swinney era, such as the Duke Blue Devils, North Carolina State Wolfpack, and Miami Hurricanes, have signaled the end of what many consider to be the Tigers’ reasonably dominant run.
Clemson advanced to the College Football Playoff four times under Swinney. They won National Championships thrice.
Swinney has produced outstanding NFL players such as quarterbacks Trevor Lawrence and Deshaun Watson, running back Travis Etienne, and wide receiver Mike Williams. This season, the Tigers had six players picked, including defensive back Nate Wiggins, who was selected in the first round by the Baltimore Ravens.
