College Gameday Host 'Rooting For' Clemson Amid 'Dabo Blasphemy'
A lot has been said about Clemson and Dabo Swinney's approach to building his program these past couple years now that the transfer portal and NIL have become a much more prominent part of college football.
With Swinney not using the transfer portal at all and NIL being behind compared to a lot of other top schools around the country, many have criticized the two-time national champion coach for failing to adapt to this new era.
Looking at the results, Clemson has struggled on the field compared to their past production.
Last season was the first time since 2010 that Swinney and the Tigers failed to win 10 games. In the past three years, they've made the ACC Championship game only once, something they did six times in a row from 2015-2020 while winning two College Football Playoff championships and going to two others.
Clemson doesn't look like the same program, and Swinney has gotten most of the criticsm as to why.
However, College Gameday host Rece Davis thinks the criticism of the Tigers head coach has gone too far, and on a recent episode of the "College Gameday Podcast," he actually revealed he is going to be rooting for Clemson this season.
"[Pete] Thamel will always say on this podcast that, you know, 'We don’t root for teams. We root for stories'. So, in that vein, I'm rooting for the story of Clemson. I'm sick to death, sick to death of the Dabo blasphemy. I've had it," he said.
Davis would go on to add he thinks Swinney should not be as stubborn when it comes to his philosophy on the transfer portal and NIL, but doesn't think his way is necessarily wrong since he's proven he can win with that philosophy in the past.
Clemson has only taken three transfers since 2018 while losing over 40 of their players to the portal.
That can make it difficult to keep the overall health of the program in tact, and strong for future years, which is something that has been pointed out when looking at Clemson's record the past three seasons.
Still, Davis is backing Swinney and how the Tigers have played.
"I mean – 'You've got to use the portal!’'" Davis said in a mocking fashion. “You know what? The guy has won two national championships and played for two more. If he thinks it can work this way, why would we just automatically assume that because they've had a couple of, by recent Clemson standards – by all-time Clemson standards, they haven't had down years. By recent Clemson standards, they've had a couple of not as championship-caliber years."
All of this is going to be determined by what happens on the field.
Clemson has a strong team once again heading into the upcoming season, and they'll have a chance to prove all their doubters wrong if they can deliver results.
BRAD WAKAI