Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney spent a significant portion of his weekly press conference on Tuesday discussing his philosophies on recruiting and the transfer portal.

Swinney has been heavily criticized at times for his reluctance to fully embrace the portal, but the Tigers did get their feet wet last year, adding three transfers to the roster.

With this year’s Clemson team being loaded with upperclassmen, next year’s squad will likely look much different. The general consensus is that Swinney will need to hit the transfer portal harder than he has in the past.

Another thing Swinney has refused to do is get into a bidding war over high school recruits, which has played a factor in the Tigers suffering 10 decommitments across the last two recruiting cycles.

However, Swinney said on Tuesday that he can live with those losses and that he would prefer to spend more on a proven player out of the portal, rather than overspend on an unproven recruit about to enter his first collegiate season.

“I am not going to overpay for a freshman,” the head coach said. “I will pay more for a guy where I know what we’ve got as opposed to a freshman. I mean, we pay these guys well, but there is a threshold. You can put yourself in trouble. They are still freshmen.”

Swinney did just that a year ago when Clemson suffered six decommitments over the final few months of the 2025 recruiting cycle. After four-star DE Bryce Davis flipped to Duke, the Tigers went out and landed Purdue transfer Will Heldt, rather than target another high school player.

With Clemson already having suffered three decommitments in the current recruiting class, including another one at defensive end, expect the head coach to once again look to the portal to address those needs.

“(Freshmen) have still never had a peer, they have never lived away from home, they have never had money,” Swinney said. “So, I think there is still a level there where you’ve got to be smart with freshmen.”

Photo by Bart Boatwright