Why Clemson HC Dabo Swinney Believes Finances Doesn't Cause Struggles Against Top Teams

There's a correlation between Clemson and the top teams with the most expensive rosters. The Tigers' head coach believes the team needs to simply be better on the field.

Oct 3, 2026; Clemson, South Carolina, USA; Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney disputes a call during the second quarter against the Miami Hurricanes at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ashley Tumlin-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

There hasn’t been anything that’s changes as fast as college athletics over the last five years, since NIL came into the landscape and changed the way student athletes are paid. 

However, Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney isn’t taking that as an excuse for why his team hasn’t been succeeding over the last few years. 

The program’s estimated budget is over 25 million dollars, with the potential to even be even more than that when looking at everything. Clemson is 3-2 this season and has played two marquee programs that have some of the most expensive rosters in the entire country. Both of those games ended in losses by multiple scores. 

And how any team has performed in games vs. opponents with bigger, smaller or similar budgets pic.twitter.com/8mDeujSqkQ

— Emily Giambalvo (@EmilyGiam) October 14, 2026

Swinney says the correlation between playing an inferior opponent financially isn’t true. He believes his team simply isn’t playing to its potential. 

“We maximize our resources but that ain’t got nothing,” he said on Wednesday. “We got to play better. We got to coach better. We got to do a lot better.”

From the graphic above, the two losses, LSU and Miami, have nearly 15 million dollars more to spend on rosters than Clemson. The general consensus is that teams that compete for national championships are the biggest markets with the most amount of money to spend. 

During Clemson’s stretch of national championship contention, this wasn’t the case. The Tigers are in a smaller market compared to the other teams that they’ve lost to in 2026, but Swinney clears the air regarding leaving money on the table when it comes to his roster. 

“We spend what we got,” he said. “I mean, can’t spend more than you got, so we try to make every penny that we have, you know, use it to our very best.”

While the LSU loss got out of hand early, the Miami loss was a game where Swinney saw glimmers of hope with his team. Clemson was getting defensive stops, even on fourth down, while the offense got across midfield in six of its first seven offensive drives. 

But, similar to recent teams for the Tigers, they shoot themselves in the foot. 

“We’ve had plenty of opportunities to put in the work and get better and better each and every game,” Swinney said, “and hopefully we’ll have some more opportunities down the road to play better.”

With regards to realizing that money is the root of winning in today’s game, that decision isn’t in the Clemson head coach’s hands, rather the athletic board and athletic director Graham Neff. However, the Tigers believe they don’t need the money to contend. 

All it takes will be a unit that complements each other on both sides of the field. 

“You have to talk to the athletic department about all that stuff,” Swinney said. “We got what we got, and we use every bit of it, and we got a team that’s getting better and we’re going to conitnue to get better.”