Why Clemson's Dabo Swinney Says the Transfer Portal Is Driving Coaching Firings

In Clemson, South Carolina, Dabo Swinney is no stranger to the level of ridicule that comes with being a head coach, and this season it almost cost him his job.

But the head coach controversy was a strangely common trend in college football this year. From James Franklin, to Lane Kiffin to Brian Kelly, it was a hard year to lead a football team.

But to Swinney, the concept alone of midseason head coach dismissals is blasphemous, and he proposed a solution in a recent press conference. Was he just trying to get midseason pressure off his back, or does Swinney’s idea have some merit?

“We have athletic directors that are firing coaches in the middle of the season because they feel pressed to get ahead of this calendar,” Swinney said.

The primary basis of Swinney’s proposal was the calendar. His culprit for the ill-informed, rushed mid-season decisions was the timing of college football’s most important dates, but it just might make sense.

The college football calendar dictates when coaches can hire, when players can transfer, and when programs can reset their rosters. With the transfer portal opening immediately after the season, schools feel pressured to make coaching decisions earlier than they otherwise would, leading to midseason firings and rushed roster movement.

If the transfer window were pushed back to March, for example, coaches could finish out their seasons instead of being shipped off in the middle of battle, because there would be no rush to get ahead of a coaching fire-hire fiasco.

“This calendar is forcing people into decisions that aren’t best for the players, and it’s not best for the coaches either,” Swinney said.

Nearly 30 teams made a change at the helm this season alone, and countless others, like Swinney, faced uncertainty about their position.

“If they want to make a change after the season, they can, and the new coach is hired, he will take the job knowing that everybody was on that team and still going to be there for another semester,” Swinney said.

It’s scary times, but there is also an unseen level of correlation between rash coaching decisions and their effect on student-athletes. By moving the transfer portal back, Swinney believes coaching changes would no longer trigger instant roster turnover.

“The new coach is gonna have time to sell his vision. Articulate what his program's about.  Get to know his players during that cooling off period and in turn, fewer players will be, fewer players will be forced to leave,” Swinney said.

Swinney’s proposed implementation of a buffer from season end to the opening of the transfer portal could potentially tame the daunting trend of mid-season head coach dismissals that headlined the 2025 season.

If there were a head coaches' union, Swiney might be a good pick for president. But he made it very clear that this solution is for the betterment of everyone, not just head coaches like himself.

“I've seen it all, I've done it all. This ain't about me,” Swinney said.