CLEMSON — Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney denied he said a comment during a question from a reporter at Tuesday’s weekly press conference, as the 12th-ranked Tigers get set to host No. 16 South Carolina Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

During the question-and-answer portion of the press conference from the Smart Family Media Center, a reporter mentioned Swinney’s comments from a 2014 press conference, in which Swinney allegedly said he would quit coaching if college athletes were paid.

“I did not say that. I never said that. I never said that,” Swinney responded. “I do not want to be a part of the professionalization of college athletics. No scholarship and getting away from a scholastic model.”

When pressed some more by the same reporter, Swinney again reiterated, “that was not what I said. That is not accurate.”

“I said the professionalization, which means we do away from the scholastic part of college. That is what I said,” Swinney continued. “That is what somebody wrote. That is what people like to put out there.”

Here is what Swinney said from a 2014 interview after he was asked about student-athletes unionizing.

“As far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me,” he said. “I’ll go do something else, because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is. To say these guys get nothing totally devalues an education. It just blows my mind people don’t even want to quantify an education.”

The reporter continued and asked Swinney if he was comfortable with the way college athletics has changed and the way the new revenue sharing will pay student-athletes going forward.

“I love it. I think it is great because we have kept a scholastic model,” Swinney said. “Ninety-eight percent of these guys are not playing professional sports and they are really done with football like at twenty-three. It is awesome because they are going to have an opportunity.

“We have more opportunity than what we have ever had to help prepare them for what is next. Just like that has always been a focus of ours, but now we are going to have a little more hands on opportunity. I still see it as our opportunity to prepare them for what is coming next. So that they are not a statistic. We have always taken pride in that as we have built men through this program.”