AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. – If Dabo Swinney could have it his way, the longtime Clemson head coach would do spring ball differently.

Rather than the traditional Orange vs. White spring intrasquad scrimmage, Swinney would love for the Tigers to be able to practice against another team, as well as have a preseason game or two against other teams – similar to the NFL preseason, during which each team typically plays three exhibition games.

Swinney spoke about that topic Monday in an exclusive interview with The Clemson Insider from the ACC Spring Meetings at the Ritz Carlton.

“If I could have a perfect world, I’d love to be able to maybe practice against somebody. But I’d like to have a little bit more of an NFL deal where we get one or two preseason scrimmages,” Swinney said. “And you could invite fans, whatever. And again, are you going to run your starting quarterback out there and play four quarters? No. But it sure would be good to get some of these guys some experience and to just get some real live football playing where you’re not 100 percent invested before you go play LSU [in the 2025 season opener].”

Swinney noted there’s a reason why the NFL has multiple preseason games – because teams have a lot of players to evaluate before rosters are set, the regular season kicks off, and games count.

“They’ve got to evaluate,” Swinney said. “They need to get some guys back that hadn’t been tackled since last year. So, even though [Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick] Mahomes is Mahomes, he still needs to get some live reps where he could get tackled. They’re going to limit that.”

Preseason work against other teams would also help Swinney and other coaches better develop their own teams, particularly the freshmen who could benefit from live game-like reps and gain valuable experience before being thrust into real game action.

“You’ve got other instances where, man, you don’t learn how to play football without playing football,” Swinney said. “And that left tackle that you just got, it sure would be nice for him to be able to get some really full-speed work to where, again, nobody’s going to lose their mind if you lose a game or whatever and you know going in, win the game or not, it doesn’t matter – that’s not the objective. The objective is to develop my team. So, guys get this great experience. So, I think that would be a really good thing for college football.”