Dabo Swinney: 'Most of the guys in the portal aren't good enough to play for us'

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has been asked about his stance on the transfer portal several times recently.

A few days after making headlines for saying “every player is technically a transfer,” Swinney offered more thoughts on the transfer portal and why Clemson isn’t very active in it during an interview with Roddy Jones on College Sports on SiriusXM.

According to Swinney, most players in the transfer portal wouldn’t help the Tigers.

“I mean, it’s really pretty simple. Most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for us. That’s just the reality of it,” Dabo Swinney said. “I mean, we have guys that are backups at Clemson that go in the portal because they just want to have an opportunity, and most of them are graduates, by the way. But we have guys that are backups. They want a chance to go play. I’ve got no problem with that. So rarely do we have a starter leave Clemson.

“So the majority of the guys, they’re guys that are in the portal because they wanna have a chance to go start somewhere. They’re not playing where they are. They’re not good enough to come in and play for us.”

If Clemson is going to bring in a reserve player, Dabo Swinney would rather them be a high school player than someone from the portal.

He added that there are two other types of players in the transfer portal and neither of them are going to end up at Clemson.

“The second type of guy that goes in the portal is he’s only going in the portal as a formality, because the deal’s already been done,” Swinney said. “He knows where he’s going before he ever goes in the portal. So we’re not getting that guy.”

The third type of player is focused on money, according to Swinney, and Clemson isn’t going to win that battle, either.

“And then the third type of guy is going in the portal just to see what he can get. And we’re never going to win that war,” Swinney said. “So we’ve been really fortunate, because first of all, we’re established. Been there 16 years. And we don’t have a lot of attrition. I mean we had 127 guys go through spring ball and 125 are still on the roster after spring, post portal closing. That’s a miracle in today’s world.”

Clemson reached the College Football Playoff six straight years from 2015-20, before missing out on the CFP each of the past three seasons.

Swinney hopes to lead Clemson back to the playoff in 2024, and he’s using his own unique way to go about trying to do that.