Question. How many schools did not take a single player from this offseason’s transfer portal? Before we give you the answer, we need to chat about Dabo. Clemson’s Dabo Swinney made plenty of headlines by sharing his thoughts on the transfer portal this week. “I mean, it’s really pretty simple. Most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for us. That’s just the reality of it.” There is plenty to unpack here. With the collapse of the ACC seeming closer than it is far, Clemson is a valued property. One has to wonder if quotes like this may hurt its brand. To try to help the Tigers and Swinney out, here are three lessons he can learn from the SEC’s Transfer Portal.
Learn From the SEC’s Transfer Portal
The SEC understands the importance of high school recruiting. Unlike Swinney, many schools realize that teams must use the transfer portal to bolster their roster to compete at the highest level. Here are three teams setting the standard for the SEC’s Transfer Portal.
Ole Miss: Come to The Sip
Lane Kiffin has become the College Football and the SEC’s Transfer Portal King. Kiffin is not a fan of the portal. He has come out many times against “free agency.” Even he though understands how that can sound like a contradiction. “It probably sounds weird for me because I think we take advantage and we maximize the system. That’s in place as well as anybody. And it’s benefited us as well as anybody around the country. But it’s really a really poor system.”
Kiffin’s use of the transfer portal is a great lesson for Swinney. Sure, he may not like it, but he understands that these are the current rules, and to compete, he needs to leverage it to its fullest capacity. Kiffin knows that Ole Miss will never be on an equal playing field to his buddies at Georgia or Texas if he relies solely on high school recruiting. Instead, he has leveraged the portal and has Oxford preparing for a home playoff game at the Vaught this December. Look at some of the players Kiffin has brought in from this year’s recruiting class.
- Henry Parrish (RB) Miami (FL.)
- Rashad Amos (RB) Miami (OH.)
- Princely Umanmielen (Edge) Florida
- Antwane “Juice” Wells Jr. (WR) South Carolina
- Walter Nolen (DL) Texas A&M
Not done yet
#TransferToTheSip pic.twitter.com/Xv9WEefWjN
— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) May 18, 2024
Texas: Hook’Em In
Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns jump to the big show in 2024. They and Oklahoma are leaving the Big 12 for the greener dollars and pastures of the SEC. It was a bit of a slow build in years one and two for Sarkisian and Texas. Last season, the Longhorns showed they were ready to make noise on the big stage and not only went out in style, winning the Big 12 in convincing style, but also made the College Football Playoff. This year, the Longhorns will look to hit the ground running and will have their sites set on a trip to Atlanta to play for an SEC Championship and another shot at the expanded College Football Playoff. The Key to Sarkisian’s success is bringing in players through the Transfer Portal.
Longhorn quarterback Quinn Ewers is a transfer. After spending a semester in Columbus, Ewers decided to come back home to Texas to lead the Horns. Ewers has shown consistent growth under Sarkisian and looks like a Heisman contender as the 2024 season nears. Sarkisian has also not been shy about bringing talent from other top SEC programs. Last year, he brought Adonai Mitchell from Georgia; this year, he brought Isiah Bond from Alabama. Mitchell was a big play threat at Georgia but established himself in Texas, where he had 55 receptions and 11 touchdowns last season. Bond again had a flair for the dramatic and did his best work in the Iron Bowl at Jordan Hare.
Georgia: All Gas, No Breaks
Athens is two hours from Clemson. The two schools are rivals on the field and in recruiting. They will meet on Saturday at noon on Labor Day weekend. Georgia’s win over the Tigers in 2021 has symbolic meaning for both programs. Since then, Georgia has won two national championships and could have arguably played for a third last season.
Kirby Smart is recruiting at a high level. The Bulldogs are in the elite echelon of college football. Last year, Smart fortified the wide receiver room, bringing in Dominic Lovett, Missouri’s top wide receiver, and Rara Thomas, one of Mississippi State’s top receivers. They bolstered the team’s depth in 2023 and look to be key contributors in 2024.
This season, Smart hit the Transfer Portal to bring in one of the top running backs, wide receiver, and quarterback. Trevor Etienne comes over from the Gators to take his spot on Georgia’s list of top running backs. London Humphreys comes in from Vanderbilt with three years of eligibility to bring another threat and stability to the wide receiver core. Finally, Jaden Rashada adds depth to the quarterback room and pushes Gunner Stockton for the starting job in 2025. Smart’s use of the portal shows that even a roster as deep and talented as he always has room for one more top athlete or three.
Checkers, not Chess
The answer to our trivia questions is four. Four teams did not take a player from the transfer portal during the offseason. Clemson is the only non-service academy school on that list. That is not the piece or the part of Trivia that Swinney and the Tigers should be a part of. Some Clemson faithful say the media has gone too far.
They quickly point out that Swinney was crackin’ jokes and his transfer portal comments were just for grins. He “clarified” his comments by discussing how every player is a transfer. ” And honestly, every player is technically a transfer. We just signed a whole class of guys transferring from high school.” While it may be fun, and it may be for grins, the reality is the Tigers are slipping. Swinney led the Tigers to six college football playoff appearances and two national championships between 2014 and 2020. Since that time, the program has been going the other way. They are coming off a 4-4 ACC campaign and falling further behind the Flordia State team, which is not shy about using the portal.
Clemson is on the market; those numbers get worse if they come to the SEC in the realignment guillotine come from the SEC. Maybe they will survive in the Big Ten, but they will still have to deal with Ohio State, Oregon, and Michigan, which have superior collective forces. It’s time for Clemson to get their house in order.
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