Is Swinney likely to use the portal when the window opens next week? |
David Hood
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- Friday, April 11 2025
CLEMSON – Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney made a splash in the recent portal window opening, adding three players that each will likely contribute this season. Will he add more when the portal opens next week?
Swinney and the Tigers added wide receiver Tristan Smith, linebacker Jeremiah Alexander, and defensive end Will Heldt in December and January, and all three are expected to play major roles in the 2025 season. The spring transfer portal window for undergraduate football players will be open for 10 days, from April 16 to April 25, 2025 (graduates can enter the portal at any time), and Swinney was asked if the Tigers will once again be active. “If you're going to take a guy out of the portal, if we get it right, we're going to get a guy that's going to come help us,” Swinney said after the spring game. “We are a developmental program as long as we continue to get the top high school kids that we want, and bring them in here and develop 'em. Last year everybody said I need to get rid of Cade Klubnik, and we're never going to win with Cade Klubnik, and he's terrible and Swinney’s crazy and needs to go get this hot shot quarterback. Now everybody says he's that front-runner for the Heisman. It is amazing. That's what I hear. And that's what I told Cade, you better not listen to none of that. Don't listen to all that crap last year that you ain't good enough to get it done. And don't listen until they tell you you're the Heisman guy or you're the whatever. Alright, just do the work. “As long as we're getting guys that we think will come in and buy in and develop, that's always the route we go. But if you get a gap in your roster or you have kids leave post spring or what happened last year, we lose a kid, boom. There's no high school kid to go get of the caliber that we needed. Hey, we will use it, we'll use the portal. And again, we've signed what, five guys in five years? It's probably the fewest of anybody, but they've all fit our need and they've all been exactly what we needed.” Swinney then praised the recent group of transfers. “We needed a guy just like Tristan. Long, a guy that had some confidence, a guy that had some production, but a guy that also not coming in here thinking he's just going to show up and be the guy,” Swinney said. “We got guys here, we need him to come in here and go earn it and prove it and compete and really make the group better. And that's what he's done. Jeremiah, we were not going to take a linebacker. We probably were going to take one in May. That was originally what our thought process was. We were going to go through the spring, but when he came available it was like, well let's see if we can get that guy. So he's a perfect fit for us. "Tristan was a perfect fit for us culture, our process isn't any different. And then when we lost a defensive end late, and there was nobody of that caliber to get, I was like, well let, let's look at all the ends. And I thought Will Heldt was the best one and we got him. So it just shows that our process works, regardless of whether we're recruiting a high school kid or we're recruiting a portal kid. We're trying to get the right guys that really align with who we are, how we go about our business here, what the expectations are, what our core values are, and also fit the role that we need them to.” Following the spring game, Swinney said the Tigers weren’t in need of a portal addition but have since lost defensive back Tavoy Feagin to the portal. “We don't need anybody right now. We feel good about where we are. But that's where I'm sitting here today. Ask me next week,” Swinney said. “Who knows? Those are things you just have to respond to. But if everybody stayed, everything stayed the same today, we feel good about our roster. We've got a lot of work to do, but we're ready to go to battle with the guys we got and let's go compete. We like our guys.”
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