AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — Though there are some coaches who seem to like the idea of having a satellite camp, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is not one of them.
Swinney told The Clemson Insider, as well as other reporters who are attending the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Annual Spring Meetings this week down in Amelia Island, Fla., that those types of camps are bad for the game. He indicated they support things such as running and jumping to be more important than a young man actually getting football instruction, where they are learning how to play the game from a fundamental standpoint.
Swinney compared satellite camps to a potential problem, like the AAU has done to college basketball.
“It is bad for the game,” the Clemson coach said. “It’s third parties. It’s AAU. It lessens the credibility of the high school coach. It is just bad. There are a lot of unintended consequences people don’t think about.”
The NCAA initially banned satellite camps early last month, and then came back and reversed their decision a few weeks later, after a media uproar, forcing conferences such as the ACC and the SEC to change its rules on not allowing a coach to conduct or be a part of a satellite camp beyond 50 miles from their school.
“We are back to a position where we as a conference did not support,” Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich said. “I think as you move along, the real question is how did that process come about that allowed that change? Were the right people sitting there making that call for the reversal?
“So, for us at Clemson, Dabo has been real up front that we are going to continue to keep doing business as usual. It is important. He stated it. A number of our other coaches have stated that getting kids onto our campus is very, very important and we are going to continue to do that.”
As Radakovich said, the rule change will not affect the way Swinney runs his camps at Clemson. And, don’t look to see Dabo Swinney or any of his coaches participating in any satellite camps anytime soon, either.
Clemson is expecting to have nearly 4,000 kids come through their two-week camps next month from second graders all the way up to the 12th grade.
“I can go do a satellite camp, practice coaching and practice recruiting all I want, but I rather be a little more efficient with my time. And, that is just what we do,” Swinney said. “Again, we will have right around 4,000 kids, second through high school, rolling through Clemson in a two-week span. We have always had every level of football represented there.
“Look, if someone wants to go do (a satellite camp), then that is fine. Everyone has to run their own program, but nothing has changed except the ACC and SEC has dropped their restrictions. It is still the same as it always has been, just for whatever reason, it has become a PR thing over the last six months or whatever. But for us, we will continue to keep doing what we have been doing.”
And what Swinney does is run a camp where kids are taught the fundamentals of the game. In other words, they play and practice football.
Like always, Clemson is expected to have up to 40 coaches from all levels of college football—FCS, Division II, NAIA, Junior College and Prep Schools—instructing in Swinney’s camp as well as former Clemson players who have played in the NFL.
Oh, by the way. Swinney and his entire coaching staff will also give instruction throughout all four camps. With so many college coaches on hand at Swinney’s camp, it debunks the notion the national media was making about satellite camps being the only way potential FCS and Division II athletes can get noticed by the smaller schools.
“That is a bunch of hot air and bologna. We have always had many, many, many, NAIA, junior college, Division II, whatever, work our camps. You name it,” Swinney said. “That is the reason I have always done that, and we have promoted our camp that way.
“First of all, we don’t do a combine. We do a football camp. We coach football. We do an old-school model. We don’t run them in the 40, we don’t do vertical jumps. We are coaching football. We are coaching them all. But, we certainly provide opportunities for kids to get seen. The myth that if you don’t go and do a satellite camp then kids are not getting seen, that is so far from reality.”
Swinney’s No. 1 goal is this … he wants all of these kids to come and experience Clemson.
Why?
Because if they don’t come to Clemson then how will they know if they want to be at Clemson if given that opportunity.
“At the end of the day, if it is too inconvenient for a kid to come to Clemson, then he isn’t coming for four years. I can promise you that,” Swinney said. “They don’t even have to come to camp. It is just about getting them on your campus, unofficially. If they are coming unofficially, then they are sincerely interested.
“For us, I still believe in the old-school model of teaching football and coaching a camp and that is just the way we do it. Our camps have exploded over the last seven or eight years. We have two youth camps, second-seventh graders. We have two high school camps and it’s been great. So we will take two weeks and we are going to coach football at Clemson and continue to do things the way we have done them.”