Dabo Swinney’s philosophy on the transfer portal has always been a hot-button topic.

Coming out of the spring, Clemson is the only Power-4 program in the country not to have added a transfer to its roster since the end of last season, and while Swinney did target a small number of offensive linemen after the season, each one chose to go elsewhere.

In an appearance on College Sports on SiriusXM, Swinney once again doubled down on his philosophy, insisting that since his program hasn’t been hit as hard with starters choosing to leave, he hasn’t had the need for transfers that some other schools have experienced.

In fact, Swinney maintained that only a small percentage of players in the portal are even good enough to come in and start day one for the Tigers.

“Rarely do we have a starter leave Clemson,” Swinney said. “The majority of the guys are in the portal because they want to have a chance to go start somewhere. They are not playing where they are and they’re not good enough to come in and play for us.”

“We have guys that are backups at Clemson that go into the portal, because they just want to have an opportunity, and most of them are graduates by the way, but they want a chance to go play. I’ve got no problem with that.”

Swinney then went on to say he thinks there are three different types of players that are generally in the portal and that his program will always choose to place more focus on securing and developing high school talent.

“There’s three types of players in the portal, it’s really pretty simple,” Swinney said. “Most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for us. That’s just the reality of it. We would rather take a good high school player, if we can get them and we do, then you develop them. That’s the first type.”

Then the head coach broached the subject of tampering, noting that many times a player knows where he is going before he ever enters the portal. And of course, there are always those that are just looking for the best deal.

“The second type that goes into the portal is, he is only going into the portal as a formality,” Swinney said. “Because the deal has already been done. He knows where he is going before he ever goes into the portal. So, we’re not getting that guy.”

“And the third type of guy is going into the portal just to see what he can get. And we are never going to win that war.”

The Tigers had just two players enter the portal after the conclusion of spring practice. One was freshman DE, Adam Kissayi, who just enrolled in January and the other was OL Zechariah Owens, who redshirted as a freshman last season.

For that reason, Swinney thinks his roster is in a pretty good spot, and his program on solid footing.

“We have been really fortunate,” Swinney said. “First of all, we’re established, Been there 16 years. And we don’t have a lot of attrition. We had 127 guys go through spring ball and 125 or so on the roster after spring, post-portal. That’s a miracle in today’s world.”

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