Clemson HC Dabo Swinney Says College Football is Missing What Matters Most

On Friday afternoon, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney put his foot down on the current college football landscape.

The flip of Cal linebacker Luke Ferrelli to Ole Miss had him go on several tangents about all of the failures that the sport now brings to the table. This transfer portal window was the first true go-around of his career, and it’s one that he’s looking for change in already.

Swinney has always been a proponent for focusing on academics, having the highest graduation rate in the country last season out of all the college football programs. That’s what he wants the focus to be going forward.

“If you’re thinking about fixing the calendar, I think for me, the first thing we must think about is what’s best for the player,” Swinney said. “What’s best for the education of the player?”

Education should be the central focus of these players instead of the six and seven figure amounts that many of these players are making. That’s one of the main reasons why Swinney wants to push back the college football calendar, so players can be able to stick around for the remainder of the spring semester, then head elsewhere comfortably.

“Watching these kids being forced to make a decision in 24 hours or less because of this calendar, it’s been eye-opening to me the impact that it has on them academically,” Swinney said, “with the amount of hours that they are losing and the amount of progress toward degrees that they are losing.”

Academics should play a factor into how many times a player can transfer as well. Swinney mentions that there should be a cap on how many times a player can transfer. One way a player can get an extra transfer is to graduate, then be able to go elsewhere.

Swinney is saying this for the protection of the players, seeing what these 18 to 20-year-olds are buying with new-found money. He thinks after years of maturity, it could be purchases that they regret.

“I believe, if we don’t act about these current transfer rules, I believe we’re going to look up in five or six years and we’re going to see a mass of players without degrees who will have spent their short-term money,” the Clemson head coach said. “We’re going to have a bunch of screwed-up 30-year-olds.”

He gives a statistic that 2% of all college football players make it to the NFL. A NFL career is about 3.3 years. That’s all this system is supporting, and Swinney wants to put more emphasis on the 98% that is making the most money that they will make over their years in college.

If nothing changes soon, Swinney believes that there will be a lot of long-term issues.

“I think we have a responsibility to make sure that we educate, that we equip and that we graduate the young men that have been entrusted to all of us in college football,” he said. “We should do what’s right for the long-term version of these players, and not what’s best in the short-term.”