Clemson Tigers HC Dabo Swinney Continues to Refuse to Adapt to New CFB Era

As another transfer portal window begins to fade, Swinney and the Tigers haven’t only not made any meaningful transfer portal acquisitions, but they haven’t made any transfer portal acquisitions at all.

13 players have left Clemson via the portal, and the Tigers have made no effort to replace them. Defensive backs Andrew Mukuba and Toriano Pride are the only two players leaving Clemson that On3 rates above a three-star rating.

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

After a similar lack of portal use going into the 2023 season, the Clemson Tigers struggled. For the first time since 2010, the Tigers failed to win at least 10 games.

Losses to teams that the Tigers rarely have had trouble with in the Swinney era, like the Duke Blue Devils, North Carolina State Wolfpack and Miami Hurricanes, have signified what many to believe the end of a fairly dominant run for the Tigers.

During the Swinney era, Clemson made it to the College Football Playoff a total of four times. They were National Champions twice.

Swinney produced elite NFL talents like quarterbacks Trevor Lawrence and Deshaun Watson, running back Travis Etienne and wide receiver Mike Williams. This season, the Tigers still had six players drafted including defensive back Nate Wiggins, who was taken in the first round by the Baltimore Ravens.

The ACC title was taken from Clemson by a Florida State Seminoles team that made great use of the transfer portal

One of the shining examples of how to utilize the transfer portal to quickly boost a program was the 2023 Florida State Seminoles.

After not winning more than seven games from 2017 to 2021, the Seminoles were undefeated as they headed into their 2023 bowl game. Norvell took over in 2020 and won just eight games in two years. He then went 10-3 with a bowl-game win.

Norvell and the Seminoles were left out of the CFP in what many thought was one of the most egregious displays of SEC bias in the CFP era.  Regardless of how the postseason turned out, their success in the transfer portal was undeniable.

Their star quarterback, Jordan Travis, was a transfer. the team’s top two wide receivers and tight ends were transfers as well as their leading rusher and their top four offensive lineman. Draft pick Jared Verse was one of 12 Seminoles defenders that were acquired via the portal.

Clemson lost their position as the ACC title holders to a team that has navigated recent years in the exact opposite way. The success of the Seminoles and the lack thereof for the Tigers is a microcosm of the future of college football.