Dabo Swinney says his program might deserve a trophy for how it navigated transfer portal

Clemson has 125 of its 127 players it took into the spring lined up to compete for spots this fall. Dabo Swinney says that might be trophy-worthy.

by Brandon Rink - Staff Writer - Tue May 14 18:02:19 GMT-04:00 2024

Multiple graphics circulated on social media recently, when the spring transfer portal window ended, featuring a quartet of schools that did not have any transfer portal additions.

Three made sense in the grouping, with military academies Army, Navy and Air Force, while the fourth was six-time College Football Playoff entrant and three-time National Champion Clemson.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney appeared on ACC PM Tuesday and offered an explanation for how his Tigers made the list.

"Well, it wasn't really necessarily like an intentional thing," Swinney said. "There were a couple guys we looked at. They gotta love you too. (Liking the guys on your roster), that's the other part of it. And honestly, every player is technically a transfer. We just signed a whole class of guys transferring from high school. So we like our guys. We like our starters.

"We look at every position, and we say, 'Hey, okay, Coach (Mike) Reed, you're gonna get two corners. Do you want a transfer?' 'No sir, I like my guys. Here are the guys we're recruiting.' There's a lot that goes into it."

In a spring portal window that featured plenty of upheaval, Swinney noted that his team only had two departures, who were a pair of underclassman linemen in Adam Kissayi and Zack Owens.

"We had 127 players go through spring, and 125 are still on our roster post-portal (deadline for spring). So, maybe we should get like a trophy," Swinney said with a smile. "And oh, by the way, we don't have many guys leave without a degree. We just had the highest graduation success rate. You ask me that and we're a part of that group (on no transfer additions), but we had the highest graduation success rate in all of college football. The highest, I believe, in the Power 5 in the last 20 years. And so, to me, that's good.

"There's so many good things going on at Clemson...Everybody recognizes we have a responsibility to educate our young people. And equip them, and that's what we really focus on. And that's what we've always focused on and nothing has changed. We've won a lot of games, and we'll continue to do that, but we're going to do it in a purpose-driven way like we always have."

Swinney identified the center position as one they did look extensively into with the portal for this year's team.

"The other part of it is, if you go bring somebody in -- somebody is going to leave. And we love our guys," Swinney said. "And if we had a spot where -- honestly there was really only one spot on our team that we felt like, because there was not necessarily a gap in age but just experience, and that was at center, and we looked at a couple guys but we really wanted to get through this spring. But man, we really love what Ryan Linthicum did. That kid has been there for three years. We really love what we saw out of him, and Harris Sewell, who ended up starting as a freshman for us last year. This kid has his whole career. Trent Howard, who's a senior for us this year.

"When you evaluate what's out there, you compare it to where you are, and we decided to stay the course. It's not just a Coach Swinney thing. This is a collective group of people who are all aligned with our team. Love these guys."