Fans criticize Dabo Swinney's decision to ignore the transfer portal: "Needs to adapt or retire"

Clemson Tigers coach Dabo Swinney has come in for a tonne of criticism after his team's dismal 34-3 loss to the No. 1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs during their 2024 season opener.

The Tigers were outplayed in all departments and what promised to be an intriguing match ended up being a stroll in the park for coach Kirby Smart's team.

Swinney has famously been criticized for falling behind other elite programs due to his reluctance to dip into the transfer portal. This means he does not get to fight for the top talents in college football.

After the defeat against the Bulldogs, Dabo Swinney addressed calls for him to embrace the transfer portal during an interview with ESPN.

"We've done it in a unique way," Swinney said. "Now people want me to go do it some other way. They've lost their freakin' mind. I'm not doing it another way. Everything doesn't go the way you want it every single time, but that doesn't mean you get away from what your foundation is, what you believe."

College football fans on X had mixed reactions to Dabo Swinney's aversion to using the transfer portal.

Other fans were kinder in their comments, acknowledging that Swinney's way had some merits in the past.

"Their way worked great...until the landscape changed and literally everyone else adapted," one fan posted.

"His strategy contrasts with the growing trend of utilizing transfers to bolster rosters," another fan posted on X.

"He'll figure it out," one fan said on X.

Dabo Swinney stays true to his anti-transfer portal stance

The Clemson Tigers under coach Dabo Swinney have the best student-athlete retention rate in college football and only lost 12 players in the spring portal.

They also have the highest graduation rate among elite college football sides. The program is also the only one that has been ranked in the top 25 in both graduation rate and the AP rankings for the past 13 years consecutively.

However, Swinney was criticized for his transfer portal stance by ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum during an episode of Get Up.

“It’s a complete and total failure, Greeny, and I don’t know how you can find it any other way,” Finebaum said. “When you look up and down college football and at the top teams, many of whom have quarterbacks who have transferred in.

“Texas does, Oregon does, so many other schools do. And for Dabo just to completely say, ‘I’m going to do it my way’. That’s fine. But this is 2024, everything has changed and you’re living in another world, an antediluvian philosophy, and it’s costing him."

During an appearance on ACC Kickoff, Swinney revealed a surprising fact about his ability to recruit from the transfer portal.

"If I took a job somewhere else, I'd be the greatest portal recruiter ever because half of my roster would be gone, and I'd have to go put it together," he said.

Between 2015 and 2020, Dabo Swinney led Clemson to the college football playoffs every year. Since then, the program has not reached the playoffs, perhaps showing the impact of the revamped transfer portal system on the once-elite Tigers.