EXCLUSIVE: Dabo Swinney defends Deion Sanders' roster turnover at Colorado

Clemson's coach has no issues with Coach Prime's use of the transfer portal

It's been a wild off-season in college football, and we're still over a month away from the first kickoff.

A large part of the narrative on the national scene has been Deion Sanders' roster flip at Colorado, with over 70 new players migrating to Boulder. Everyone has an opinion about what Coach Prime has done, including Oklahoma's Brent Venables, who went at Deion over his turnover tactics.

“You know, I gave guys twelve months of grace," Venables told The Ref in Norman. "I was unlike Deion (Sanders). I gave guys 12 months of grace to figure it out.

Prior to his time with the Sooners, Venables was Dabo Swinney's defensive coordinator at Clemson. The two formed a consistent one-two punch with the Tigers taking the Alabama Crimson Tide to the ropes for two national titles.

Swinney was asked his thoughts on Venables' remarks at the ACC Football Kickoff on Thursday. He refused to say anything about his former assistant. But Swinney did, however, defend Sanders' use of the transfer portal.

"I'm not judging anybody on how they run their program," Swinney said about Venables's assessment of Sanders. "That's not my job to do. I'm focused on how we run our program."

"I think to each his own. Everybody's got a job to do. Everybody's situation is different. I think our job as coaches is to play within the rules and do what you have to do to compete."

Sanders, like Swinney, has used several rule changes to gain an advantage. The Hall of Famer, who came to Colorado from Jackson State, inherited a one-win team with not much to work with in terms of talent. Coach Prime and his staff quickly stacked together a group of high-quality players like Travis Hunter and Cormani McClain.

Venables wasn't the only coach going after Sanders. Pittsburgh's Pat Narduzzi got fired up over Prime's unconventional style.

"That's not the way it's meant to be. That's not what the rule intended to be. It was not to overhaul your roster. We'll see how it works out, but that, to me, looks bad on college football coaches across the country," Narduzzi said

Say what you want, Sanders and the Buffs will be featured in FOX's first two Game of the Week slots. Not something being said at any other school in America right now.