Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has taken plenty of heat for his reluctance to embrace the transfer portal.
Earlier this week, Swinney attempted to dismiss the issue by saying that “every player is technically a transfer.” During an interview with Roddy Jones for SiriusXM, the two-time national champion expounded further on his portal philosophy.
“There’s three types of players in the portal. I mean, it’s really pretty simple. Most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for us. That’s just the reality of it,” Swinney said. “I mean, we have guys that are backups at Clemson that go in the portal because they just want to have an opportunity, and most of them are graduates, by the way. But we have guys that are backups. They want a chance to go play. I’ve got no problem with that. So rarely do we have a starter leave Clemson.
“So the majority of the guys, they’re guys that are in the portal because they wanna have a chance to go start somewhere. They’re not playing where they are. They’re not good enough to come in and play for us. And so, we’d rather take a good high school player, as long as we can get him, and develop him.”
As for the other two types of players in the portal, according to Swinney, one group includes guys “who are going in the portal as a formality, because the deal’s already been done.” The final group are players who go portaling “just to see what they can get.”
“We’re never going to win that war,” he said, presumably referring to NIL.
“Most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for us.” @ClemsonFB HC Dabo Swinney explains to @RoddyJones20 the three types of players in the transfer portal and why none of them landed in Death Valley. #ALLIN
Hear the full interview: https://t.co/0qgyAQVk3y pic.twitter.com/9HFwUY4BfX
— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) May 16, 2024
Swinney has his approach, and he’s clearly sticking to it, outside noise be damned.
However, if the Tigers have a fourth-straight season with three or more losses in 2024, that noise will only get louder.