Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Nov 18, 2025, 9:28 PM

Over the past 2-3 seasons the discussion of Dabo's use of the transfer portal has been a burning topic of many fans on TigerNet. I've since witnessed several programs such as Florida State, Texas A&M, Oregon, Ohio State, Vandy, and many others recruit heavily from the portal. For this post, I will use Indiana as the example of a portal-built team. From there, I will attempt to express the pros and cons to building a team from the portal vs a home-grown team such as Clemson's current philosophy on recruiting. Please see Indiana's portal selections below:

Breakdown of Indiana’s Transfer Portal Recruits (2025)
Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti leaned heavily on the portal to reshape the roster. Here are the incoming transfers:

Sources:

⚖️ Context
• Total Transfers In: 11
• Total Transfers Out: 11 (including QB Tayven Jackson to another program)
• Strategy: Cignetti emphasized production over potential, targeting experienced players who can contribute immediately.
• Impact: Several of these recruits are expected to be starters, especially QB Fernando Mendoza and RB Roman Hemby.

🏈 Why It Matters
• Indiana’s roster transformation reflects the new reality of college football, where the transfer portal is as important as high school recruiting.
• With 11 new transfers, Indiana is aiming for instant competitiveness in the Big Ten, rather than waiting for long-term player development.

So, Indiana brought in 11 transfer portal recruits for the 2025 season, balancing out the 11 departures.

PRO: This season proved to be a success with careful selection from the transfer portal. However, it came at a huge financial expense in relative terms to NIL and the return on investment will not even break even from a financial standpoint.

CON: The program may win the national championship this season and anything less is an abomination due to the potential that they've shown all season long. They're certainly a contender for a title run. However, this model of recruiting is not sustainable from a financial standpoint. Therefore, there won't be much longevity for sustainable success with this method.

Clemson on the other hand, lacked depth at specific positions and used NIL packages to retain current roster talent. They then recruited depth from the portal at those specific positions. So far, the transfers have outperformed some of the homegrown talent. Now, we must ask ourselves why that is the case. I believe that it's due to the lack of experience in the player development staff. Those that transferred to Clemson came from programs that consisted of coaches with 3 decades of experience that were members of the support staff and at least 10 years of coaching experience as position coaches and coordinators.

PRO: With this method, Clemson can create sustained success and longevity by recruiting the right player from high school and developing them from day 1. Of course, this requires experienced coaches on the development staff and analyst staff to ensure that success can continue to occur year over year. Emphasis on having an experienced player development staff. What Clemson has lacked for nearly 5 seasons is an experienced player development staff with 18 staff members having zero prior experience as a coach before being hired by Clemson. Utilizing NIL to retain players is the best route for sustainable success year over year.

CON: You won't always land the recruit you pursue from a high school level. Many schools offer NIL to high school recruits and if Clemson is unwilling to do that, then they can expect to miss out on top level talent. This is why it is very important to have extremely experienced player development coaches on your staff. That way, position coaches and coordinators can focus on installing the playbook and the weekly game plan. That and cleaning up execution during practices week after week.

The solution for Clemson is simply hiring the right player development staff. I'm not convinced that Dabo needs to fire position coaches or coordinators just yet. Especially considering that they can all recruit extremely well from the high school recruitment pool. It is up to the player development team to ensure that they are ready to be received by their position coaches and coordinators. After reviewing several games from the past two seasons, I've arrived at the conclusion that player execution is the primary issue and that could be resolved by 90% if the players have better player development coaches that are dedicated to improving a player's individual skillset, football IQ, and physical strength and conditioning. That way player execution is much better whenever they head to practice with coordinators and position coaches.

In the end, I still hold the belief that recruiting a developing a home-grown roster is far better than hitting the portal really heavy each season.

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Our country won't go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won't be any America because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race.

~Chesty Puller
Lt.General United States Marine Corps

It’s an additional talent source that everyone uses…..why not use it?

It can be used for MORE than just depth players

EVERY school has transfers out each year, some more than others.

Don’t be afraid to “out recruit” what you have on the roster in the portal. You’re trying to do that each year via HS recruiting anyway.

Portal can be less risky from the standpoint of already being in a College regimen and 1-3 years more mature/stronger.

Clemson doesn’t need 105 portal players but they need roster help BADLY (10-15 is ideal this year) along with, as you mentioned, development capable coaching staff members.

Hopefully all this happens and we can get back on the path to elite.

Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Re: Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Re: Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Re: Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Re: Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Re: Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Re: Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Re: Portal Built vs Homegrown That Is the Question

Recruit the portal just like high school.

Re: Recruit the portal just like high school.

Re: Recruit the portal just like high school.

Re: Recruit the portal just like high school.

Re: Recruit the portal just like high school.

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