Dabo Swinney makes case for college football to have preseason games

Clemson will hold its annual Orange and White spring game on Saturday, which will be the closest thing the Tigers have to an actual game until the season against Duke on Sept. 4.

High school football has jamborees to prepare staff members and players for actual games, while the NFL holds preseason games.

College football doesn’t have either of those, though.

In college football, you aren’t given the opportunity to face off against anyone else until the season begins and the games count. Tigers coach Dabo Swinney would like to see that change

“I’d love it. I’ve said that a million years,” Swinney said when asked if he’d be in favor of preseason games. “I’d love to play somebody in the fall. We’re the only level of football that doesn’t get a chance to scrimmage somebody – even the pros.”

Holding joint practices with another team has become common in the NFL.

While Swinney would love to play preseason games, he would take a joint practice over the current option of never seeing another opponent until the season begins.

“It’d be nice to bring somebody in and do some 1-on-1s against somebody else,” Swinney said. “I’ve said that for years. Every time you take a snap on a [practice] day, you’re 100 percent invested. If anybody grabs an ankle, they’re yours. You’ve got 22 on the field every single snap.”

Ideally, Swinney would like to have preseason games or practices against other opponents during fall camp.

In that scenario, the entire Clemson roster would be able to participate.

With that said, he’d also be happy if the spring game turned into a scrimmage against another team. That would at least allow the entire roster other than summer enrollees to participate.

“The spring game, there’d be some interest in that, I guess. But to me, I’d rather have it in the fall, fall camp. Even if it’s just being able to practice against somebody, do some inside drill against somebody else, do some 1-on-1, do some 7-on-7, like you see in high school,” Swinney said. “They go and work against each other. They practice against each other. You see it in the pros. So maybe have a day of camp embedded with somebody. I think that’d be great.”

As Swinney has mentioned several times before, college football teams train year round and get an opportunity to face another opponent a maximum of 15 times per year. To play 15 games, you have to reach the national title game, which Clemson has done four times in the past eight years.

Swinney would like to see an increase to the number of days you get to face off against someone else.

“All we have is each other for 350 days. If everything’s perfect in our world, you get 15 days to play,” he said. “So it’s the 350 that makes the difference. We’ve only got each other. That’s all we’ve got. … But it’d be nice to have that opportunity somewhere along the calendar.”