A recurring theme of the 2025 season for the Clemson Tigers was the job security of head coach Dabo Swinney.
Clemson snuck into the College Football Playoff last season after an underwhelming 10-3 regular season, though it did knock off SMU in the ACC Championship Game. But the Tigers were blown out 38-24 by the Texas Longhorns in Round 1.
This season was even more disappointing as Clemson finished 7-6 after an uninspiring 22-10 loss to BYU in the Pin Stripe Bowl on Saturday.
The fact of the matter is Clemson’s roster simply isn’t as talented as most of the other Power 4 schools, and as long as Swinney keeps his anti-transfer portal stance, the Tigers will likely stay stuck in the middle of the pack in an increasingly difficult NIL world.
Many of the top teams in the College Football Playoff have embraced roster building through the transfer portal just as much as they do on the recruiting trail.
But Swinney has notoriously been against using the portal to build a “super roster,” and if he doesn’t cave on that way of thinking soon, college football insider Josh Pate believes it will ultimately lead to the end of his tenure as Clemson’s head coach.
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“Any sizeable improvement with that program at this point would require significant change, and I don’t think Dabo Swinney’s the kind of guy at this point in his career who’s going to significantly change,” Pate said during his show on Saturday. “So what it could just be is that it could be that we’re sort of watching the final chapter or chapters written of the Dabo era at Clemson.
“… There’s an end to everything. There’s an end to every run. And if you’re not going to get with the program here, I mean if you’re not going to adjust, if you’re not going to adapt, you will die as it pertains to being a playoff contender. That’s been an age-old concept. Tale as old as time. It’s happened a billion times. This would just be a billion and one.”
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Swinney has already proven he’s a great coach.
He took Clemson from a middling ACC program under Tommy Bowden to a national powerhouse that won two national championships in 2016 and 2018.
But the one flaw to Swinney’s coaching philosophy has been his stubbornness to embrace the transfer portal and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of college football — something Pate isn’t confident will change.
“When you refuse to take advantage of mechanisms of talent acquisition like the portal because you want to go about it a certain way … the follow-up is are you willing to change?” Pate asked. “And maybe Dabo Swinney’s not willing to change. I don’t expect him to change. It’s been my take for three years on this. I don’t expect him to change.”
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