There are three driving factors to the Dabo and the portal

discussion.

1. Scholarship availability. We, like every other school, are limited to 85 scholarships. Unlike many other schools, we do not have a coach who is going to go back on his word. If he recruits a kid, in his mind he is making a four year commitment to provide an opportunity to grow as a football player and as a man. Other coaches, not so much. If they can "suggest a kid transfer" or simply inform him that his scholarship is no longer available, if it means win now they will do. Like it or not that is Dabo's principle. He will not deviate from it.

2. NIL money. While it is "illegal" to couple a portal offer with an NIL guarantee, we all know NCAA's enforcement as well as authority are minimal at best. There are new legal challenges filed this week challenging the NCAA's authority to limit the number of times a student athlete can transfer. Clemson cannot win in bidding wars with TAMU, FSU, etc. We are a smaller school with a smaller booster pool.

3. Culture. Dabo has built this program on the ideals of family and building men, not just football players. His portal search will thus not include "one and done" players. Building players can happen with even unprincipled coaches such as Bobby Petrino. Making players that are already good into great players can happen fairly quickly. Turning boys into men takes time.

These three factors are always in play. If we are at the scholarship limit, Dabo will not push players out. Therefore we cannot take a transfer, no matter his star rating or how well he would help the team.
If it is obvious a player is looking for a bigger paycheck, we will likely not enter that process. If it is a player that has one year of eligibility, or is likely to only ride out the college game for one more year, that is not a fit for Dabo's vision.

Dabo built Clemson on principles. We all loved that when we won championships. We won and won the right way and everyone was happy. Times have changed. Dabo may adapt, but abandon his principles? Not going to happen.

Message was edited by: revmarkg®

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#1 is completely bogus as I've pointed out several times now

Jan 19, 2024, 2:56 PM

Dabo doesn't even need to run kids off. All he has to do is choose not to take a couple of fall back options out of HS and save those 2 or 3 spots for portal kids. It's really not difficult to set aside 2 or 3 roster spots, Dabo apparently just hasn't wanted to do it. We just signed 22? kids in this recruiting class. Sign 20 and you have 2 spots for transfers. Problem solved. Even if you do not agree that Dabo SHOULD be taking transfers, you still should still be able to see that the scholarship limit is not preventing Clemson from taking transfers. The staff is in control of scholarship allocation and they have chosen not to allocate scholarships for transfers.

#2 is also very dubious because I find it very unlikely that Ole Miss or NC State or Louisville have massive NIL advantages over Clemson. NC State just signed Grayson McCall and Duke's really good RB Jordan Waters, plus a couple of other kids. Does NC State have money to throw around that Clemson does not have? Are we so broke that we can't even sign 1 OL from the portal? One of our OL targets chose Georgia Tech over Clemson. Does Georgia Tech have a bunch of NIL money to throw around that Clemson does not have? Very doubtful.

#3 is legit, but, again, that's a choice made by Dabo. This all points back to the same thing. Dabo still doesn't really want to take transfers. It's not he can't, it's that he doesn't want to. If he wanted to he could find a couple of roster spots. If he wanted to he could shake up a little bit of NIL money. Dabo has always been a very good HS recruiter so am i supposed to believe that his characteristics that make him a great HS recruiter do not translate at all to recruiting transfers? Suddenly nobody wants to play for Dabo? I don't believe that for a second. If Dabo wanted to he could recruit the portal. He doesn't want to. He may have said otherwise publicly but actions speak louder than words and Dabo's attempts to sign any portal players this year were half-hearted at best.

Look, It's Dabo's program to run the way that he wants to run it. He's earned that right and more with what he's accomplished here over the last 15 years, but let's not sit around and make up BS excuses for why Dabo can't sign portal players. He absolutely could if he wanted to. Saying anything else would be insulting to Dabo. The man has proven that he's capable.

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Some of this applied to Saban as well. Which I believe led to his

Re: Some of this applied to Saban as well. Which I believe led to his

Re: Some of this applied to Saban as well. Which I believe led to his

Re: Some of this applied to Saban as well. Which I believe led to his

Chaos, confusion, turmoil during transition.

My fear is there is so much greed leading the inmates running the asylum.

No one knows what it will all look like...

Re: No one knows what it will all look like...

Re: Chaos, confusion, turmoil during transition.

Re: Chaos, confusion, turmoil during transition.

Re: There are three driving factors to the Dabo and the portal

Re: There are three driving factors to the Dabo and the portal

Re: There are three driving factors to the Dabo and the portal

Re: There are three driving factors to the Dabo and the portal

The TALC (Tradition, Academics, Loyalty, Conference)***

Me too. Hoping Dabo and Clemson stand by principle and

#1 is completely bogus as I've pointed out several times now

# 1 is not bogus.

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