Paul Finebaum blasts Dabo Swinney for 'antediluvian' transfer portal approach: 'It's a complete and total failure'
One of the biggest storylines following Georgia‘s dominant 34-3 win over Clemson was Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney‘s roster-building strategy. Especially Clemson not utilizing the transfer portal yet again this offseason following a three-year run where the Clemson program has taken a step back.
Clemson’s Week 1 loss showed a clear gap between the nation’s top team and the Tigers, a gap that’s widened following Clemson’s run of College Football Playoff appearances and national title wins in the mid-2010s. It’s what led to Get Up host Mike Greenberg asking college football analyst Paul Finebaum about Swinney’s approach on Tuesday morning.
“It’s a complete and total failure Greeny, and I don’t know how you can find it any other way,” Finebaum said. “When you look up and down college football and at the top teams, many of whom have quarterbacks who have transferred in. In fact, Georgia doesn’t, but Texas does, Oregon does, so many other schools do. And for Dabo just to completely say, ‘I’m going to do it my way.’ That’s fine. But this is 2024, everything has changed and you’re living in another world, an antediluvian philosophy, and it’s costing him.”
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Following six straight ACC title wins and six straight appearances in the College Football Playoff, the Tigers have taken home just one conference title and failed to return to the CFP in the last three seasons. And while there’s still plenty of football left to be played this season, another disappointing year for Clemson would put the program at an interesting crossroads given the status of their legendary head coach.
“And I’m not suggesting the end is near for him, but his fans, the ones of which I’ve heard from already on our show Greeny, are frustrated and they don’t know what to do,” Finebaum said about Swinney. “Because he’s been so successful, you can’t go down the hallway and say, ‘Get out of here.’ The guy’s been to four national championship games and six playoffs. He’s taken Clemson where it has never been before, but it’s going nowhere right now.”
College GameDay analyst Desmond Howard also chimed in on Swinney, highlighting the importance of player development if the transfer portal is not going to be used by the Tigers and where they’ve fallen short.
“The reason why a lot of coaches, they dip into the portal nowadays, is because they don’t do a good job at developing the talent that they bring in. You look at some of these programs like a Clemson, they have high recruiting classes. Meaning they’re either in the top 10 or top five,” Howard explained.
“You look at Cade Klubnik, this is his third year in the program, his second year under OC Garrett Riley. You would expect Cade Klubnik, a guy who recruited, five star, to at least by year three show vast improvement,” Howard continued. “My problem is it’s okay if you don’t want to go get a quarterback out of the portal, I get that. You may go get a piece here like a wide receiver, or an offensive lineman, or a linebacker, whatever the case may be. But when you bring in this talent of this caliber and we don’t see the progress, the development, then that’s the problem that I have.”
Howard added that Swinney’s philosophy of supreme confidence in recruiting and developing has widened the talent gap between the Tigers and a team like Georgia. Those two programs faced off in 2021 in a 10-3 Bulldogs win and now look like completely different programs.