Thanks to Dabo Swinney's stubbornness, Clemson has slid to the second tier of college football

For a minute there, Clemson had you wondering, didn’t it? 

During a large portion of the first half of Saturday’s season-opener against Georgia, Clemson was more than hanging in there. It looked physically able to keep up with the monsters on the other sideline. It was hitting hard, running just as fast and, most importantly, keeping the scoreboard close.

It was rational to quietly wonder: “Could this Clemson team be a real problem this year? Could the Tigers be back?” When the titans of this sport clash, there’s a certain look to it. The game, for a while, had that look. 

Then a few hours went by and the bigger, stronger, faster — deeper — team prevailed.

Final score: Georgia 34, Clemson 3. 

It’s Dabo Swinney’s fault. Through stubbornness and a refusal to adapt with a sport that has completely transformed the last few years, the Tigers have slipped from being one of the nation’s elite programs back into the second tier. They may still win 10 games this year, but that could happen while simultaneously never scaring anyone at the summit of the sport.

It’s hard to criticize Swinney because I truly do view him as one of the best coaches in the modern era of this sport. He did something no other coach in this era has done. He took a good program and turned it into a truly elite one, something athletic directors fantasize about duplicating every time they make a hire. Clemson won multiple national titles and beat other juggernauts like Alabama and Ohio State along the way. Clemson was the “it” program six years ago.

Part of that is because Swinney had two generational quarterbacks in Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence. The other part, which people tend to forget, is Swinney and his staff had a keen eye for spotting and developing under-valued talent. Isaiah Simmons on repeat. 

But the game changed. And Swinney, who resisted the marriage between college athlete and compensated athlete from the beginning, never wanted college football to change the way it has. 

He once said the day players are paid is the day he’d no longer be coaching. But over time, he has (rightfully) changed his view on player compensation and NIL. It’s not that Swinney was ever against players being paid for their services. He was just too attached to the old-school view of what college football was and is supposed to be. You develop as a person in college, pay your dues, work hard and good things will happen. 

But there is one area Swinney has never adapted: In the transfer portal. And it has cost his team.

There is nothing he could do to halt the infusion of money into the sport. But he was always going to run his program his way, and that means recruiting players out of high school, sticking with them while they pay their dues and eventually watching that work pay off in the form of playing time. 

It didn’t matter other coaches — who probably agree with Swinney’s view of what college football should be — were adapting while he wasn’t. Nick Saban’s greatest gift as a coach was being able to change with the times and lead the way at every turn. Saban probably didn’t love NIL and rampant transfers, but he participated in that aspect of the game because he knew it was necessary.

Swinney’s ideas are admirable and it’s hard not to like what he stands for. He wants to remain loyal to the people who are loyal to him, the people doing it things “the right way.” Who isn’t on board with that? And as On3’s Jesse Simonton pointed out in a recent column, it has resulted with only 31 players leaving the program in the last four years.

In the last portal cycle, Swinney took no transfers. He said this on the ACC Network from conference media days over the summer: “Well, it wasn’t really necessarily like an intentional thing. There were a couple guys we looked at. They gotta love you, too. … And honestly, every player is technically a transfer. We just signed a whole class of guys transferring from high school, so we like our guys. We like our starters.”

How much do you like them now? 

You need to recruit like a maniac. And even after you recruit like a maniac, you’re inevitably going to have holes that need filling and upgrades that need to be taken if you ever want to win big again.

Instead, Clemson faced a team that relentlessly upgrades its roster and could only hang for a few quarters. You think Kirby Smart is concerned about anything other than being the best, regardless of the feelings he may hurt along the way? Georgia eventually laid the hammer down and blew the Tigers off the field.

Georgia’s leading receiver in the game was London Humphreys. He was a transfer. Oh, and star running back Trevor Etienne, who was suspended for the game, is another transfer who Georgia will be welcoming back next week. Even the teams the teams that dominate in recruiting utilize the portal to supplement already great rosters.

Clemson didn’t. Now recruits are noticing. LaDamion Guyton, On3’s No. 1 ranked edge prospect in the 2027 class, said this to Steve Wiltfong after the blowout. 

“It opened my eyes to the difference between an SEC school and ACC,” Guyton said. “The physicality, the speed and talent are what separates Georgia from other programs in my opinion.”

Clemson never used to be “an ACC school.” It used to be one of the premier schools, one of the cool schools, one of the dangerous ones.

And because Swinney refuses to change, his program has instead. For the worst.