Dabo Swinney and the Clemson program were more active in the transfer portal than usual this season but failed to land any of their targets on the offensive line.
While this may be disappointing to some, Swinney is happy with where the Tigers are on the line. According to Swinney, the Tigers were hurt by this as they weren’t looking for a one-and-done player, but rather someone they could build the offensive line around for multiple years.
“I’m excited about where we are, and frankly, that’s kind of what hurt us with some of these portal guys. We really weren’t looking for a one-and-done guy. That really wasn’t what we needed,” Swinney said. “Because you bring a guy in, you’re going to lose somebody. We like our guys. We don’t want to lose any of those guys. We believe in Tristan (Leigh), Collin (Sadler), Blake (Miller), and those guys, Marcus Tate – these are guys that can play tackle and guard for us. We’re really excited about them and where they are.
“So, we were really looking more for – and we didn’t know how it was going to play out with Mason (Wade), we didn’t know how it was going to play out with Elyjah (Thurmon), and we ended up getting those guys, which is just a home run for us – but we were really looking for guys that maybe had at least maybe three years left. We felt like that would be a good fit for us.”
They are looking much better on the offensive line than they were before, but it is tough to ignore these transfer portal misses. You need to earn your place on Clemson’s starting lineup, and the head coach simply couldn’t guarantee any of the players they were after a starting spot.
“As I say, they gotta choose you. You can try all you want, but they gotta choose you, and it’s hard when you’ve got seven starters coming back,” Swinney said. “A lot of these guys are in the portal for a reason. They want to be the guy, and I can’t guarantee anybody’s going to be the guy. You get an opportunity to be the guy, but you’ve got to earn it.
“But thankfully, it all worked out, just worked out the way it was supposed to. Getting Elyjah and getting Mason really was big for us because obviously they’ll come in and compete right away but give us guys that have a lot of years ahead of them.”
We all wanted to see improvement on the offensive line from the portal, but that won’t be the case this season. The Tigers will bolster the unit with their 2024 recruiting class and continue developing their players on the roster.