Clemson Football Coach Dabo Swinney 'Hates NIL' Claims Former Clemson Letterman

Dabo Swinney hasn't been able to replicate his early career successes since the advent of the transfer portal and NIL compensation.

Sep 21, 2024; Clemson, South Carolina, USA; Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney speaks after a game against the North Carolina Wolfpack at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ken Ruinard-Imagn Images / Ken Ruinard-Imagn Images

The Clemson Tigers football program, once considered one of the best programs in all of college football, has fallen into hard times in recent years thanks to the refusal of head coach Dabo Swinney to adjust to the NIL era of college football.

Not only has Swinney, a two-time national championship-winning coach, not finished a season inside the top ten since the abbreviated 2020 campaign but it's a problem entirely of his own making, per reports.

The coach has previously gone on the record as "not believing" in the transfer portal, outright refusing to allow players to transfer into the Clemson program from other schools, but he has even stronger feelings about other recent developments in college football.

"He don't do the portal" confirmed former Clemson cornerback Nate Wiggins, appearing on Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey's Punch Line Podcast. "He hates NIL too, though."

Wiggins went on to break down the timeline of the introduction of legalized NIL payments to players: 2022, his sophomore season. Coming off of a freshman season spent mostly on the bench, Wiggins contemplated transferring away prior to his sophomore year for more playing time but instead stayed and enjoyed a breakout year. In 2022, Wiggins appeared in all twelve regular season contests, the ACC Championship, and the bowl game loss to Tennessee, picking up 25 solo tackles, 14 pass breakups, and one interception that he returned for a touchdown, finishing as a First-team All-ACC selection by College Football Network.

But when Wiggins' agent went to request more NIL funds to stay in lieu of a potential transfer to Oregon, he received extensive pushback from the staff, a fact that confused Wiggins.

"If he don't pay nobody, eventually they're going to leave," he said on the podcast. "So you ain't going to have a team."

2022 saw Clemson briefly taste some of their former glory, winning the ACC over North Carolina and finishing 13th in the AP Poll with an 11-3 record. But despite winning the conference, it was only one spot better than 2021's 14th-place finish and a far cry from the 2010s, which saw Clemson win two national titles and play for two others during a dominant six-year stretch with the program went 79-7 and never finished farther back than 4th in the final polling.

And true to Wiggins' words, players saw the writing on the wall in 2022 amid Dabo's rejection of NIL, who said that he built the program not on paying players but on "God's name, image, and likeness." Fourteen players transferred after the season, including starting quarterback DJ Uiagalelei.

Offsetting their losses with only one incoming transfer, former Alabama backup quarterback Paul Tyson, the Tigers struggled to a 9-4 finish in 2023, going just .500 in the ACC conference despite having a roster with six NFL draftees.

Swinney didn't learn anything from 2023's struggles, however, remarking this February that he's "against the professionalization of college athletics" and would prefer that players don't receive compensation for competing athletically. "Nobody talks about the value of an education anymore," explained Swinney, not understanding how the modern game has evolved.

He claims to be for players receiving NIL money, but when the rubber meets the road, Clemson isn't doing enough to maintain their recruiting prowess under Swinney and the results are showing on the field. The Tigers' recruiting class sits at just 19th on 247 Sports' Composite Rankings, behind both Miami and Georgia Tech. Swinney claims this isn't NIL related, either, saying “There’s other great programs,” he said. “There’s other great coaches and people. And sometimes, for kids, it’s a better fit for them somewhere else. That’s just part of recruiting. That’s why I don’t really ever get caught up in who we don’t get. … The key is to focus on the ones you do get, and that’s what we’ve been able to do around here a long time.”

But one fact remains the same: Ever since the introduction of NIL to college athletics, Dabo Swinney's lost his fastball. And he doesn't appear to be too concerned with getting it back.

Dabo claims that NIL isn't everything and that the program's doing enough to remain competitive. "As far as our recruiting, if NIL is the factor, we’re probably not going to get them,” Swinney said over the summer. “But if it’s a factor? Hey, we’ve got as good of a shot as anybody.”

If only that were true.