Ryan Clark believes Dabo Swinney's unique transfer portal behavior gets love from Clemson leaders

Dabo Swinney is one of the few coaches in college athletics who has a different approach to the transfer portal. The portal has witnessed a significant growth in usage across the college football world over the last few years but Clemson has hardly used it.

Following his interview with TJ Parker and Peter Woods on “The Pivot” podcast on Tuesday, Ryan Clark rounded up his take on the unique transfer portal behavior of Dabo Swinney.

“Dabo Swinney hasn’t used the transfer portal at Clemson in the way other major universities have, & his players love him for it,” Clark wrote. “TJ Parker & Peter Woods are leaders within that locker room who applaud Dabo’s willingness to commit & pour into the players he recruits out of high school.

“Both feel that despite using the portal differently that Clemson has everything it needs to compete for a championship. It’s something they contribute to their coach & the buy in that’s been created in their building.”

In his interview with ESPN in April 2022, Dabo Swinney detailed the reasons behind his approach to the portal. The coach believes showing commitment to the players he recruited out of high school is paramount.

“My transfer portal is right there in that locker room, because if I'm constantly going out every year and adding guys from the transfer portal, I'm telling all those guys in that locker room that I don't believe in them, that I don't think they can play,” Swinney said.

“We're also not doing our job as coaches and recruiters if we're bringing in a bunch of transfers. We're not going to build our roster on transfers.”

Dabo Swinney explains the change toward his transfer portal behavior

This offseason, Clemson shockingly decided to bring in some impact players via the transfer portal. This went against the program's rigid transfer portal approach over the years. In an interview with Jason Priester of Clemson Insider in January, Dabo Swinney explained the change.

“As you know, things can change in recruiting,” Swinney said. “We had a young man decide to back out and go somewhere else. There wasn’t anybody left to recruit to fill the need that we needed. So we have a gap. We have to use the portal and we needed a high-level guy and we got the guy that I wanted to get.”

In the winter transfer portal window, Clemson brought in defensive end Will Heldt from Purdue, edge rusher Jeremiah Alexander from Alabama and wide receiver Tristan Smith from Southeast Missouri. The three addition are considered solid and are expected to make the team better.