Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney having a high opinion of himself probably isn’t news to most people.
But Swinney’s latest remarks during a radio interview on SiriusXM’s "College Sports" explaining why Clemson hasn’t gone after many players in the NCAA transfer portal shows that he certainly has delusions of grandeur about where the Tigers stand among the top programs in college football.
“I mean, it’s really pretty simple — most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for us,” Swinney said. “That’s just the reality of it. 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. … So the majority of the guys, they’re guys that are in the portal because they want to 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.”
Swinney seemingly believes Clemson is viewed in the same light as Alabama or Ohio State, where his talent depth is so rich that four- and five-star players leave because they’re stuck behind more four- and five-star players.
Dabo Swinney asked on ACC PM about Clemson being the only non-service academy to take zero transfers for 2024. Says it wasn’t intentional, they looked at a few guys. Also: “Every player is technically a transfer. We just signed a whole class of guys transferring from high school” pic.twitter.com/DeDbSDUBcC
— Chapel Fowler (@chapelfowler) May 15, 2024
However, that isn’t exactly the case.
The Tigers lost 12 players to the transfer portal in 2023, and only one — quarterback DJ Uiagalelei — was rated as a four-star or higher. Of the nine players who transferred from Clemson in 2024, only two were four-stars.
Not to mention 75 of the 128 players on Clemson’s 2023 roster were rated a three-star or lower coming out of high school (58.5 percent), per 247Sports. Of Clemson’s 13 enrollees from the 2024 class, seven of them (54.8 percent) were three-star recruits.
While Clemson may have been in the same league as Alabama or Ohio State back in 2016-2018 when it won two national championships in three years, the school has taken a step back as one of college football’s national powers.
More must-reads:
Get the latest news and rumors, customized to your favorite sports and teams. Emailed daily. Always free!