Swinney and ACC against satellite camps

Swinney thinks satellite camps are very close to football combines.

by Tony Crumpton - Assoc. Editor - Thu May 14 11:30:03 GMT-04:00 2015

ACC head coaches at the ACC spring meetings were discussing altering the ACC's policy (and NCAA loophole) that would allow coaches to setup satellite camps outside of a 50-mile radius of their school's campus.

Michigan is setting up football camps in California, Florida and Texas next month and Penn State had a camp at Georgia State last year and will again in June.

Dabo Swinney does not think that satellite camps are good for the future of collegiate football.

"We’re not all going out to Las Vegas for a showcase. [Basketball] is a different deal," Swinney said to ESPN. "I like that [in] football, right now the high school and college campus are the two places you recruit."

"We're against it because, as a conference, we have our conference rule and we like it the way it is," Swinney said.

TigerNet spoke with Swinney in mid-April and got his thoughts on satellite camps and his personal philosophy in recruiting on-campus.

“I think it's a loophole that people take advantage of and I think it's something that needs to be addressed. I don't think it's a good thing because I think ultimately what happens is instead of having camps, you're having combines. I think there is enough of that and you're going to have camps in every city and basically it becomes a combine.”

Swinney said that he wouldn’t be in favor of Clemson going into Big Ten territory and holding satellite camps because he would rather get recruits on Clemson’s campus.

“My philosophy is we put a tremendous amount of emphasis on our camp here at Clemson and I want to get guys on our campus,” he said. “That's the best part of everything we do from a recruiting standpoint - our campus itself. We can go out of the road, recruit and evaluate and do the things that we need to do, but we want to get guys here at Clemson. Because we know if they come, we've got a good shot from a recruiting standpoint. It's something that will probably come to a head one way or another, but I don't have a problem with it because it's been "the rules," but it really hasn't been that big of an issue with us.”

The ACC conference will recommend to the NCAA that they disband satellite camps.

Christian Wilkins