Clemson One of Four FBS Teams to Have No Transfers

In today's age of college football, it appears more and more likely that players are willing to transfer for any reason.

"I don't like the coach." Transfer.

"I don't like playing offensive line. I want to be a wide receiver." Transfer.

"I don't like the fact that this school doesn't have strawberry ice cream in waffle cones with rainbow sprinkles." Transfer.

But at Clemson, something different has happened. Players are choosing to stay.

"I think that just says a lot about our team and where they are and how much they value Clemson and what they think about their opportunity and their experience here," head coach Dabo Swinney said. "I think that, of the Power 5, there were only four teams that did not have anybody leave during spring and after spring. So we had 109 guys go through spring and they're all still here. So most years there's somebody, either just before practice or during practice or exit meetings after practice, you have somebody that may leave, whether it be a graduate or whatever, but I think this... The one thing that I love about this team, and I think that particularly speaks to it, is this team is very self-aware."

Now, this is not the case every year. In fact, last season alone saw a few players exit before the season started or was completed.

And this is not an every-year occurrence, but for Swinney, it does speak to the makeup of his team—which is special.

"This is a team... A lot of times when you have these exit meetings, and 109 meetings is a lot coming out of spring, and sometimes," Swinney said. "There's been very few years where you go through your whole roster, every now and then you'll have a meeting where you'll have to take a deep breath because you know it's about to be a tough meeting or you have a meeting and you're not on the same page. And I didn't have any of that this year. There wasn't a single meeting where I had to kind of get myself mentally ready. And there wasn't a single meeting where we weren't on the same page."

"And I love that about this team, self-awareness, it's not always there with young people, especially the type of talented guys that we have, because this is very much a developmental game. And it's a long-term process, it's a long-term development. It doesn't always happen when you want it to or in the short term. But I think that says a lot about this group, again, how focused they are, what they think about Clemson, what they think about their coaches and their overall experience here."

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