College football continues to rapidly evolve, and head coaches across the country, including Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, are doing their best to keep up with the ever-changing landscape.

With the revenue-sharing model expected to go from in the neighborhood of $20 million per school upwards to as much as $40 million in the near future, Swinney believes Clemson needs to “build out a central office” to oversee how that money gets distributed.

Right now, Deputy AD / Internal Affairs Amanda Gray Richardson heads that up at Clemson, and with the money schools are allowed to spend likely about to double, Swinney believes some expansion is needed there.

However, the biggest change Swinney wants to see is more transparency. Right now, tampering is running rampant, and coaches are fighting with every fiber of their being to keep their rosters intact from season to the next. Not to mention some of the negotiating tactics some of the agents out there are using on behalf of their clients.

“If I could say one thing I wish we could change, I would say we need transparency,” Swinney said. “Because there is none. There is just a bunch of lying. There is no transparency. Transparency would create some markets and some rules and some order, which we have none of that. That is probably a definite area.”

For Swinney, he’s become accustomed to having to evolve on the fly. The football program at Clemson has experienced a tremendous amount of change over the years. One of the more recent ones was the hiring of Kevin Kelly away from the NFL to serve as Senior Director of Player Personnel. However, Swinney believes more expansion needs to still happen in that area. Although that doesn’t include the addition of a General Manager type of position to make final decisions on the roster.

“Jeez, we have evolved 20 times,” Swinney said. “Bringing in Kevin Kelly was amazing for us from a football standpoint, and how he has kind of set up our personnel stuff. I mean, he has been awesome. And getting better. I would say we still need a couple of spots there, helping him a little — he and Jordan (Sorrells) in there.”

There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to college athletics, and it’s not just football, and Swinney believes there is still more Clemson can do to help streamline the process.

“Certainly, from a central office standpoint, it’s a lot of money,” Swinney said. “Just making sure we can support all the sports the right way. There are contracts and red lines on contracts. One-year deals, two-year deals. What are the trends? What is real, what’s not? Dealing with agents. There is a lot of stuff involved. That is definitely an area that everybody has to invest in.”

– Photo courtesy of Bart Boatwright/The Clemson Insider