Dabo Swinney has had a longstanding policy about adding transfers that he has stuck with during his tenure as Clemson’s head coach.
While countless other teams across the country have used the transfer portal to enhance their rosters, the Tigers are not one of those teams. Swinney has always been against it and has never brought in a transfer.
After a 2-2 start to the 2021 season, one that has all but eliminated the Tigers from the College Football Playoff picture, Swinney’s policy is being probed as attrition and youth take their toll on the Tigers at key positions.
During ESPN’s College GameDay show Saturday morning, college football analyst and former Georgia linebacker David Pollack talked about Swinney’s opposition to the transfer portal and whether he thinks Swinney will change his stance on it moving forward.
“You know what, I think it’s interesting because there’s a lot of talk about Dabo Swinney this weekend,” Pollack said. “Just like Coach K (Duke head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski) – Coach K developed a basketball program and had so much success. Didn’t want to do the one-and-dones. He evolved. Just like Nick Saban – offensively, didn’t want to spread it out, didn’t want to go up-tempo. He evolved.
“Dabo Swinney, when you look at him, he’s been very much against the transfer portal. Talked about culture, building culture. They’ve had 20 kids lost in the transfer portal. They have signed zero kids from the transfer portal. He’ll have to evolve in that aspect. If they had that on the offensive line right now, it would have changed their team completely this season. So, I expect that will be a big difference in the future with Dabo. They’re going to have to address that.”
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