During his National Signing Day press conference, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was outspoken on the transfer portal and changes he’d like to see happen with it.

In Swinney’s opinion, if a player isn’t a graduate or their head coach isn’t gone, they should have to sit out a year if they transfer.

“If a coach leaves or is fired, hey, you go, you’re eligible. No problem,” Swinney said. “And I think that makes everybody have to make good decisions there. Make hasty decisions with coaches, too. I think it works both ways. If you’re not a graduate, or your coach isn’t gone, you can go but you sit. Now there’s just a little bit of consequence that now all of a sudden you gotta really want to do that.”

Swinney believes that would help cut out tampering while also benefitting high school prospects getting fewer scholarship offers due to the focus on the portal.

“I think number one, it would stop tampering,” Swinney said. “Because you’ve got all this tampering going on out there because now there’s this whole new pool of recruits, right. It’s not just high school kids anymore or graduates or junior college guys – it’s freshmen, it’s midyear enrollees, it’s sophomores, and that’s not good. It’s not healthy. It’s not good for the game, it’s not good for anybody.

“So, it would cut out the tampering, number one. And again, I think it would protect the high school recruits. It would protect high school recruiting a little bit. Because again, you’ve got a lot of these high school kids that aren’t getting opportunities.”

Swinney went on to talk about the “hasty” decisions that are being made by some players in the transfer portal.

“If there was just a little bit of pause, it would cut back on some of these hasty decisions that kids make,” he said. “Just a little bit of pause, and now all of a sudden maybe that kid’s like ugh, I’d sit a season, and they’d push through. And nine times out of 10, man, it works out for them.”

Swinney says more players need to have the “crockpot” mentality, not the “microwave” mentality.

“What’s wrong with a little bit of development, what’s wrong with a little bit of time? Like, we all want this microwave – we need to have a crockpot mentality,” he said. “The best meals come from that crockpot when you leave at about 8 in the morning and mama’s got some food in the crockpot and you’re like whoo, that’s gonna be good when I get home at about 6, right. But everybody wants it in the microwave, and that’s usually not the best meals, the one you just heat up. That’s how everybody wants it to be. But that’s just what I think.”

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