Clemson coach defends spring football games: 'Ain't gonna stop tampering'

Dabo Swinney says Clemson will still play its spring football game, downplaying the concern some other coaches have about other schools using the scrimmage as a tampering opportunity.

Clemson is sticking with its spring football game in 2025, despite other schools backing out of their annual scrimmages. / Ken Ruinard / staff / USA TODAY NETWORK

Amid some high-profile college football programs electing to do away with their spring games over concerns about tampering, Clemson’s coach isn’t as worried as his peers are.

“We’re going to have a spring game and I hope we can have some type of fan day with it, as well,” Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney told reporters.

“I don’t know, we’ll see. Listen, whether you have a spring game or not, it’s going to be tampering.”

Other college football coaches have expressed concern that the spring game could serve as an effective try-out for players for other schools to lure away in an age of immediate transfers.

As far as Swinney is concerned, there are so many other ways that teams can tamper with players that going that extra step to forgo spring games won’t do enough to stop the problem.

“Ain’t nobody going to go look at the spring game, go, ‘Oh yeah, boy,’” Swinney said.

“They got PFF. That’s called PFF. They’ve got everything on everybody already. Canceling the spring game ain’t gonna stop tampering. We’re going to need a lot more help than that to stop tampering. And hopefully at some point that’ll happen.”

That help will likely only come in the form of national legislation as the U.S. Congress continues looking into NIL and player compensation policies.

And that process still remains only in its very early stages, with no guarantee of an outcome that coaches will accept.

Swinney said that although Clemson will have a spring game, some of his more experienced players may not participate, citing right tackle Blake Miller as an example.

“When you evaluate things, I mean for us for example, you look at your career snaps, your career offensive, defensive snaps, and Blake Miller’s probably at the top of that list for us,” he said.

“You look at those guys that have played a ton of snaps. Do I really need to see Blake play live this spring? No. He needs to get some work, and he’ll get a lot of work, but you’ll limit his live work.

“He doesn’t need a lot of live work. But you know who does? All those other dudes.”

Those other dudes will be on the field when Clemson plays its spring football game on April 5.

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