Clemson has taken a step or two back over the last three seasons, with head coach Dabo Swinney earning criticism for his reluctance to adapt to some of the realities of modern college football, particularly the transfer portal.
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum appeared on “McElroy & Cubelic In The Morning” on Monday, where he discussed Swinney’s future at Clemson.
In short, Finebaum doesn’t think there will be a very long future for the two-time national champion.
“It is catching up to him as we speak,” Finebaum said of Swinney’s philosophy regarding the portal, via On3. “People that graduated from Clemson, people that are Clemson fans — they don’t think Dabo Swinney is going to be there a long time. When I say long time, I mean three to five years. I think his time is nearly up.”
Clemson is the only non-service academy FBS program to not land a transfer this offseason. Swinney defended his portal approach during a recent interview with Roddy Jones on SiriusXM.
“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.”
That’s not good enough to get the Tigers back to being a top two program in college football, the status they shared with Alabama from 2015-20, per Finebaum.
“He is falling so far behind,” Finebaum said. “That doesn’t mean they can’t have a good program. That is if you call 9-3 or 8-4 or maybe an occasional 10-2 a good program. But that’s not the same school that went to six consecutive CFPs a few years ago, played for four national championships. I think that part of it is over.”
After losing only seven games over six seasons from 2015-20, Clemson has dropped 10 games over the last three years. In 2023, the Tigers posted their first campaign with four losses under Swinney in more than a decade.