Why Dabo Swinney can lead Clemson back to contention in 12-team CFP

The 2023 college football season may have just ended, but there are plenty of storylines to discuss for the upcoming 2024 campaign. So, On3’s college football expert, Andy Staples, has not taken a break when it comes to answering the big questions entering the 2024 offseason.

On a recent episode of the Andy Staples On3 Podcast, The Athletic’s Grace Raynor was on and shared her thoughts about what’s going on with Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers. To get down to the nitty-gritty of it all, Raynor shared her thoughts on whether the Tigers headman can lead his program back to the promised land in the new college football landscape and the expansion to a 12-team playoff system.

“Every single person that I talked to for this story, even the ones that pushed back on some of his philosophies, were very adamant that Dabo Swinney is not done and that there is every reason to believe they can get back there. Obviously, the 12-team playoff is going to help him. He is slowly coming around with these portal offers, and maybe they’ll land one or two here in a little bit,” said Raynor.

“I think the thing about Dabo is, yes, he’s stubborn, and yes, he can be a little slow to change, but he is so competitive, and this is his legacy, his program, and his name on the line that I don’t think he would be content with just letting it ride off into the sunset. He is Clemson.”

Swinney has had a wildly successful run as the Tigers head coach. After taking over the program’s reins in 2009, he turned Clemson into a perennial power, dominating the ACC with 10 championship game appearances where his teams have gone 8-2. On top of that, Swinney has won two national championships, in 2016 and 2018, a cornucopia of awards, and has sent countless players to the NFL.

For all that Swinney has done in the past, the conversation is more fixated on his and Clemson’s future. Since the expansion of NIL and the transfer portal, his team has begun to struggle to keep up with their high-ranking counterparts and other leagues. But according to Raynor, it is not without reason. Sure, Swinney might have played a role in it, but there also might be a layer of financial backing that played a more prominent role in how Clemson approaches the transfer portal than what most see.

“I don’t know if it was wanting to try his own way first and then come around a little slower. Or, you look at the portal, and you look at NIL, and I think that’s part of it; Clemson is not a huge alumni base,” Raynor continued. “It doesn’t have big, huge donors; that’s part of it. It’s [a] very grassroots organization, as one person that I talked to said. But it’s interesting, and if he had gotten there in his own way, it would have really changed the way we think about college football. But because he is going to have to evolve, I think we’re going to see him sort of slowly start to move in that direction.”

According to Raynor, Swinney is aware of the gravity of the situation. Even more so, he sees how it is directly correlated with his legacy at Clemson. And given the information the college football expert was able to collect when working on her Clemson piece, Swinney is not satisfied with the status quo. So fans should anticipate a more aggressive Tigers headman going forward, and that goes for dealing with the transfer portal world as well.