Swinney says more changes coming to college football, but his purpose stays the same

Swinney said his purpose is still to build great men (Photo by Merrell Mann).

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Fri Mar 01 07:00:03 GMT-05:00 2024

CLEMSON – College football has lost its way, and Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney wants to make sure that his players and their families understand the value of an education.

Swinney spoke with the media Wednesday ahead of the initial spring practice for his Tigers, and he covered many topics, including the current climate of college football. He was asked about the future and if he has any ideas on how to improve it, and he said his focus is on his team and his players.

But he said he also knows more changes are on the way.

“There will be more dominoes coming. What that looks like? I don’t know. But for me, I’m still about leading these guys and trying to graduate these players and get to know them as men,” Swinney said. “Try to make sure they have a good experience and try to make sure they win a championship. That’s never going to change for me.”

One media member pressed Swinney on comments Swinney made years ago about quitting if players were ever paid by schools, and Swinney responded to the query with typical Dabo passion.

“I’ve always said I’m against the professionalization of college athletics. We’ll see,” Swinney said. “The best thing for coaches in the world that we live in now is for them to be employees. The worst thing is for them to be employees. That’s not a world we want for 18-year-olds. We’ve lost our way…I’m all for the NIL. I think the NIL is awesome. I’m all for enhancing the scholarship however you want, and I also understand the reality that 98% of these kids are not going to play in the NFL, and we need to educate our young people in this society.

“Nobody talks about the value of an education anymore. It’s $125,000 to $145,000 a year for every single kid that comes to Clemson. Every single year, football player. That’s $30-45,000 cash in hand and everything that goes in between it. That’s not even counting NIL. We’ve created a great opportunity, and we should create more. I just want to see us incentivize education.”

Swinney then laid out several ideas for changing a few things.

“There’s so many things we could do. We could create 401Ks like the real world. If you take out your money early, there’s a penalty,” Swinney said. “But these are 18-year-old kids leaving home for the first time in their life, and we are sometimes setting them up for failure. So, it is what it is, but hopefully, at some point, we’ll find a better place that we’re not just firing 18–19-year-old kids because they aren’t quite as fast as we thought they would be. Or they’re a little homesick or whatever.”

He then reiterated that he is still driven by teaching his players to become better men.

“There’s a lot that will come down the pipe and down the road, but I love what I do. I love the challenge of it. I love the challenge of putting a team together. And focusing on my guys. Focusing on helping them fulfill the purpose of this program,” Swinney said. “Really, the purpose of my life, which is to glorify God, be a great husband and father, and to use this platform for education and football to build great men. That’s my purpose. That’s what I do, what I wake up and do, and what drives me. None of the other stuff drives me. That’s what’s always driven me. None of that has changed. I think there’s a lot of great things that will eventually come about. But there will probably be some bad things that happen along the way that we’ll all learn from, and somewhere along the line, someone will say that we need to be a little smarter in this area.”