Dabo Swinney reveals if he thinks Clemson could land CJ Spiller in current NIL era

Former Clemson star and current Tigers assistant coach CJ Spiller will officially be inducted into the Clemson Ring of Honor on Saturday, ahead of the Tigers game against Virginia.

Spiller is one of the most important recruits in Clemson football history. Back in the mid-2000s, the former five-star recruit spurned the local Florida Gators to come to Clemson, in large part because of his relationship with lead recruiter Dabo Swinney.

Swinney was an assistant at the time, but he ended up landing the interim head coaching job and eventually permanent head coaching job during Spiller’s college career.

Swinney was asked on Tuesday during his press conference if he believes the Tigers would be capable of winning a recruiting battle like Spiller’s during the current NIL era.

“I don’t know, you know,” Dabo Swinney said. “CJ’s a unique guy, you know. Who knows. There’s all kinds of hypotheticals you can create in your mind, but CJ, I think, was born to come to Clemson.”

CJ Spiller signed with Clemson in the class of 2006 and went on to have a historically good career. He holds the NCAA record for kickoffs returned for touchdowns with seven, and he finished his career with 7,588 career all-purpose yards. That number ranks third in NCAA history and is an ACC record. Spiller ranks first all-time among power conference players in all-purpose yards.

Dabo Swinney feels strongly that CJ Spiller was meant to go to Clemson and that everything worked out the way God intended.

“I think what God wants, ain’t nothing going to stop it,” Swinney said. “So just what I think about it. I mean that could be anybody’s recruitment going back.”

The question to Swinney came after Clemson lost its quarterback commit for the class of 2025 on Monday in Blake Hebert, who flipped to Notre Dame. While Swinney admitted that Clemson has some obstacles to overcome with the way NIL currently is, he feels that the Tigers will be better in the future.

“Where we are moving forward, absolutely,” Swinney said of being able to land CJ Spiller. “Maybe the last two or three years might’ve been more of a challenge where you’re kind of at the mercy of trying to raise NIL money, which is hard. But when you get into the revenue sharing, that’s a game changer.

“It’s not going to be any different for us than it is anybody else. So then it’s just a matter of, everybody’s got the same amount of money, so you’ve gotta figure out how you want to divide it up, right. I mean everybody makes local decisions. But I’m excited about that. I think that’s a great thing.”