By Will Vandervort.

Nothing surprises Clemson’s Dabo Swinney anymore in the high-stakes game of college football.

The Tigers’ head coach said “nothing surprises me” when he learned that the University of Texas is considering an idea to pay its student-athletes a $10,000 stipend.

The Dallas Morning News reported late Tuesday that Texas could spend nearly $6 million a year in student-athlete stipends.

       That won’t break the bank, Athletic Director Steve Patterson said Tuesday at a forum on the fast-changing business of college sports. But even rich programs like UT’s will be forced to make tough choices in the future if momentum in the courts continues to push colleges to treat their players like employees or semi-pros, he said.

       Chris Plonsky, director for women’s sports at Texas, said the school already employs 350 workers to coach and care for the students who play in Austin. The money for all of those jobs, she said, comes from just two sports, football and men’s basketball.

       “If we begin to [further] remunerate the participants, that’s going to break that model,” Plonsky said.

       Assuming the new policies survive the legal appeals process, Patterson said UT won’t have problems paying the extra $6 million to its players. That money will break down to about $10,000 for each player. The money will cover college expenses that aren’t covered by a traditional full scholarship and give each player $5,000 in compensation for the university’s use of his image.

Though Swinney was not prepared to go into full detail following Wednesday night’s practice, his ideas do seem to match that of Texas’ – at least the concept anyway.

“I think the path to take is to evaluate the scholarships and the equality of the scholarships,” he said.

Swinney did not comment to TCI any further on the Texas situation, but when he was speaking with the rest of the media prior to TCI’s brief conversation with him, he broke down a little more on what he thinks might be fair when it comes to student-athletes receiving a stipend.

In answering a question in regards to the controversy surrounding signatures that reportedly Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston and Georgia running back Todd Gurley received payments for, Swinney said, “One of the main reasons that their likeness is so good is because of their opportunity. When you sign up, there are certain rules that you have to follow. I just think what we have to look at, from a college football standpoint, is the stipend situation.

“How can you improve their quality of life in their scholarship? But as far as this guy can go sell his autograph for this and this guy can do this and this school is going to pay you this for your autograph and this alumnus is going to pay you this for this autograph – I think you are in the Wild Wild West. I just don’t think that is good for college football,” he continued. “Is there something that maybe they should be paid up front or as a part of their scholarship for their likeness? Those are all common sense discussions. But to say open free market, let’s have every alumnus out there start asking kids for an X- amount for their signature. That’s not college football. You have kids walking around getting signatures all the time. Again, there are rules in place. When you sign up to come play college football you either except those rules or you don’t. If you don’t, you don’t have to come play.”

There seems to be the notion conferences and universities will figure out exactly what they are going to do when it comes to paying players. For Swinney, it seems a bit simpler – every athlete should be treated the same.

“They are all equality players. They are all benefiting from their opportunity and certainly from their hard work they have put in to develop as a player,” he said. “I think the conversation is more within the scholarship as opposed to singling people out. I think you create a problem within your team. This guy is worth this and this guy is worth that. I just don’t think that is the right way to go.”