Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney doesn't hide hatred for transfer portal | Sporting News

Clemson Tigers football coach Dabo Swinney has been vocal in the past regarding his dissatisfaction regarding the rapidly changing landscape of college sports.

It was just over five years ago, when discussions of NIL first began taking shape on the national stage, that Swinney hinted that hed consider leaving the college game altogether if players started getting paid.

Fast forward six years, and although NIL has now been in effect since 2022, Swinney remains at Clemson, where hes the winningest coach in both school history and ACC history.

But that doesnt mean that his more traditionalist position on college sports has softened.

Yes, Clemsons NIL collective was outspent by just eight other programs in the NCAA in 2024, according to the NCAAs own estimates .

But that doesnt mean that the Tigers are utilizing the transfer portal to bolster their roster in the way that most other programs across the country are.

Over the last four recruiting cycles, Clemson has signed a grand total of just five transfers.

This is a figure far below what essentially every other program across the country Power Four or otherwise has done in this same time period.

And based on what Dabo Swinney said during a recent appearance on The College Gameday Podcast , dont expect Clemson to alter their course until the current transfer portal model undergoes a complete overhaul.

"There are no rules right now," Swinney in the midst of an interview with host Rece Davis and new North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick.

"We just want some rules.

And I think we're coming out of a period of complete chaos and where there's no cap, the schools can't handle things directly.

It comes from outside entities.

What Dabo Swinney and many other coaches as well seems to be most bothered by is the lawlessness which exists within the current model.

Players can come and go as they please, and as Swinney puts it, players are getting paid based on hypothetical production, instead of rewarded for their long-term commitment to a program.

Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp "I think rewarding performance will be a part of this, whereas right now, it's just a bunch of hypothetical.

And again, there's no rules.

You can do whatever you want, Swinney noted.

The solution here may be something that ends up resembling a professional payment system, where there is a salary cap and contracts that stipulate how players need to remain with the program.

But whats clear is that the current structure of the transfer portal and the NIL isnt working, and the NCAA will continue to resemble the wild west until someone much smarter than me figures out the proper way to legislate all of this..

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