Dabo Swinney identifies two players he wanted to keep in transfer portal 'chaos'

Dabo Swinney told ESPN that Andrew Mukuba was one of two transfer portal exits who he genuinely wanted to keep since 2018.

Brandon Rink - Assoc. Editor / Staff Writer - 1 day ago

Since 2018, Clemson has had 62 outgoing players into the transfer portal.

While that may seem high, fellow Palmetto State 'Power' conference team South Carolina has had 118 in the same span (numbers per 247Sports).

Of that 50+ group, Dabo Swinney identified just two "he genuinely wanted to keep," says ESPN's Chris Low: safety Andrew Mukuba (Texas) and defensive end A.J. Hoffler (Georgia Tech).

Mukuba was the ACC's defensive rookie of the year but struggled through injury and position changes toward the end of his Clemson tenure. He put together a standout 2024 season with the Longhorns en route to five interceptions, 11 passes defended total, four tackles for loss, a forced fumble and 69 total tackles.

Hoffler is an even more recent transfer, a former 4-star prospect who went back to his hometown of Atlanta with Georgia Tech this offseason after playing in 21 games over two seasons at Clemson, logging 13 tackles and 1.5 TFLs last year.

With a mad rush around the portal ahead of the House settlement, which aims to stabilize things, Swinney says his program has flourished overall.

"It's not just these last few weeks, but the last few years, and there certainly has been no rules, and whatever rules there were -- if you tried to enforce them -- then they would get changed, and you'd wait six months, and they would change again," Swinney told ESPN. "So, yeah, there has been a ton of chaos, and it's like I told our staff. We're entering a really chaotic time.

"But the more chaos out there, the better it is for us because we're built for it."

In the same ESPN piece, Tigers' preseason All-American QB Cade Klubnik noted the difference with Clemson and others.

"We're going to have 99.8 percent of our team from January 'till next January. We're not losing a bunch of guys. We're not getting a bunch of guys," said Klubnik. "You see these teams out there that are losing 10 or 15 guys after spring and then bringing in 20 guys. We had player-led meetings today, and it was the same guys in the room as last January. It's not like you're trying to get to know a lot of strangers...

"If there is (talk of NIL money in the locker room), the leaders on this team shut it down real fast," he added.