Dabo Swinney Pushes for Change Amid NIL Chaos and Transfer Portal Concerns
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has long been one of the staunchest defenders of the traditional college football model. He’s been vocal about his resistance to the idea of college athletes becoming employees, drawing a hard line between amateurism and professionalism. But after a recent transfer dispute involving one of his signees, Swinney is now advocating for something he’s historically pushed back on: collective bargaining.
In a candid press conference, Swinney didn’t hold back. He called out what he sees as a broken system-one that lacks transparency, consistency, and enforceable rules. And in a surprising pivot, he acknowledged that some form of collective bargaining might be the only viable path forward.
“Quite frankly, that might be the only way to protect the collegiate model,” Swinney said. “To have two sides have some type of agreement so that you can have some rules that can actually be enforced because everybody's agreed.”
This comes in the wake of Clemson formally reporting Ole Miss to the NCAA for tampering with linebacker signee Luke Ferrelli, who ultimately flipped to the Rebels. But with the NCAA hamstrung by antitrust rulings and legal limitations, enforcement has become more of a suggestion than a reality.
Swinney didn’t mince words when it came to the current NIL landscape, calling it a “crazy” system from a financial standpoint. He pointed to a complete lack of transparency in NIL deals and accused some athlete representatives of lying and even engaging in what he described as “flat-out extortion.”
“There is no other sport or league that operates this way,” Swinney said, clearly frustrated with the unchecked chaos.
So what does Swinney’s ideal model look like?
For starters, he proposes a baseline compensation figure-he floated $100,000 as an example-that would be built into an athlete’s scholarship. Anything earned above that amount would be placed into a compounding annuity or similar financial vehicle, only accessible once the athlete graduates or turns 25.
“This would incentivize graduation,” Swinney explained. “I know this is pie-in-the-sky and requires congressional help and collective bargaining and all that stuff. But as adults, we all know that the graduate or the 25-year-old version of these players will be much more mature and prepared and they will think differently than they did at ages 18 to 21.”
He even drew a comparison to car insurance rates-cheaper for 25-year-olds than for 17-year-olds-underscoring his point about maturity and long-term decision-making.
On the transfer front, Swinney supports a one-time transfer rule with no penalty. But if a player wants to transfer again, they should sit out a season-unless they’ve graduated or their coach has been fired. It's a system that echoes past NCAA rules, but with a few modern twists to reflect the current climate.
He also wants to see the transfer portal windows shifted. Under his proposal, the window would move to either Feb.
25-March 5 or March 1-10. The goal?
Give players a chance to finish their academic semester before jumping to a new program.
Swinney pointed to a recent example involving Miami tight end Brock Schott, who entered the portal on Jan. 2-just after the Hurricanes played in the national title game-and signed with Indiana, Miami’s opponent, by Jan. 5. That kind of rapid movement, Swinney argued, is a byproduct of the current Jan. 2-16 portal window, which he believes is forcing players and coaches to rush decisions.
“No. 1, ADs are firing coaches midseason, and they can let them finish the season,” Swinney said.
“If they wanna make a change after the season, they can. The new coach that's hired, he will take the job knowing that everybody that was on that team is still gonna be there for another semester.”
The bigger issue, he said, is that not every player entering the portal is doing so willingly.
“Fewer players will be forced to leave,” Swinney added. “News flash, not everybody is going into the portal willingly. A lot of players are being forced to leave, and this would help alleviate that.”
Swinney knows his ideas won’t be universally embraced. He acknowledged that some will view his proposals as self-serving, coming from a high-profile coach with a hefty paycheck. But he insists he’s speaking not as a millionaire coach, but as someone who’s lived the student-athlete experience from the ground up.
“I am very aware that my thoughts, my opinions, my proposal will probably be construed as the thoughts of a self-serving, high-earning coach,” Swinney said. “But I'm proposing this as a 56-year-old man who entered college football almost 38 years ago as a student-athlete with nothing but Pell Grants, student loans, a great work ethic and a dream.”
His message carried a strong sense of urgency. Swinney warned that without structural reform, the sport is heading down a dangerous path-one where graduation rates plummet and mental health issues spike.
“We need some type of leadership. We need some type of bipartisan help,” he said. “Because these players, they need us to provide the right leadership and the right structure at this incredibly critical time in their lives.”
For a coach who’s spent years defending the old ways of college football, Swinney’s tone has clearly shifted. He’s not abandoning the collegiate model-he’s trying to save it. But in a world where NIL, the transfer portal, and legal battles are reshaping the sport at warp speed, even the most traditional voices are realizing that the only way forward might be through change.