Clemson found a way to beat North Carolina on Saturday. But according to FOX Sports college football studio analysts Chris Petersen and Bruce Feldman, the bigger questions surrounding head coach Dabo Swinney aren’t going away.
“To me, he’s been slow to change and slow to adapt in three things,” Petersen said. “No. 1, the transfer portal, he didn’t want to there. The second thing is NIL money. His roster’s at like $30 million, and the top teams are at $40-plus million.”
“And the third thing is the quarterback. A lot of these good teams, they go get a proven quarterback in the transfer portal and recruit a really hot-shot young guy, develop him, and make sure he’s going to be good. But if he’s not, they go get a transfer quarterback that they know is good, and he hasn’t done any three of those things.”
After kicking off the season with an ugly 51-10 loss to LSU, Clemson followed that up with a 22-7 home win over Georgia Southern. But after the Tigers fell behind early against the Tar Heels on Saturday and faced a 17-6 deficit heading into halftime, fans at Memorial Stadium began voicing their frustration with Swinney.
Dabo Swinney is 189-54 as Clemson’s head coach. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Clemson responded with a strong second half, led by sophomore running back Gideon Davidson’s season-high 105 rushing yards and a touchdown, to rally for a 28-20 comeback win.
The Tigers, who have traditionally refrained from building their roster through the transfer portal, are coming off a 2025 campaign in which they began the year ranked No. 4 in the country but finished 7-6. The seven wins were the fewest for Clemson since 2010, Swinney’s second full season as head coach, and just the second time since 2010 that the Tigers failed to win double-digit games.
Moreover, the Tigers have made the College Football Playoff just once since 2020, making the playoff in 2024, the inaugural year of the 12-team format.
“The problem for Clemson is they owe him $55 million. There is no offset in Dabo’s deal. Dabo’s not leaving money on the table from what we’ve heard,” Feldman said about Swinney’s future with the Tigers. “Also, Clemson is not like Texas A&M where they have all these big oil-money people throwing money around.”
Clemson travels to Cal next weekend for an ACC road game before hosting No. 5 Miami the following week.
“If he doesn’t adapt, he’s going to become the ‘Blockbuster’ of college football coaching, once dominant and now out of business,” FOX Sports Studio Host Mike Hill said of Swinney.
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