Has Dabo Swinney changed his tune on player compensation?

Few high-profile coaches in the NCAA have been more hesitant to embrace the era of player compensation than Clemson's Dabo Swinney. But Tuesday, while speaking to the media about the university's plan to fully participate in revenue sharing under the NCAA's upcoming House settlement and add 150 scholarships across all sports for the 2025-26 academic year, the often stubborn Swinney was singing a new tune.

"A lot of people I don't think really understand, kind of, the dynamics of where we are right now," he said. "I've said many times, we're kind of in the fourth quarter, we're in the back 20 percent of insanity. We've got some normalcy in this new world coming, but rev share doesn't start until July 1. And so right now, it's just wacky land — you can do anything you want, and it doesn't have to make any sense. There's no real standard. And so, what they're doing with the university is going to allow us to do what we need to do until we can get to rev share.

"Because right now, we don't have rev share, there is no rev share, it's just NIL, which is just pay-for-play right now. In the past, you didn't really have any benefits to give to [it], other than you're just helping us, and that's been a challenge. That's just the reality of it. It's not going to be a challenge with the rev share, that's going to be a blessing, it's gonna really, really be a difference-maker for us."

While universities around the nation are not expected to begin sharing their NCAA revenue with athletes until the start of the 2025-26 academic year, which begins next July, it is imperative that plans be made now so that when the time comes to start the revenue sharing programs, it is a seamless transition. Swinney is confident that Clemson's plan, which was outlined to IPTAY members in a letter from A.D. Graham Neff on Tuesday, will help the university capitalize on the opportunities provided by this new era in the college sports landscape.

"Ain't nobody gonna have more money than Clemson," he said. "Nobody. For the first time ever."

According to Swinney, the sharing of university revenue, which will be capped by the terms of the settlement of the landmark House v. NCAA lawsuit, will bring about a sense of normalcy that has been missing from college athletics since players began to receive outside compensation for the use of their name, image, and likeness from entities not associated with or run by universities.

"...NIL is going to be different come July," he said. "It's going to have to meet a standard. Right now, there's no standard. 'Hey, how are you doing,' and [you] can give me 20 million dollars. There's no standard. That's why we went out and hired ESM. That's one of the best sports marketing agencies in the entire country, and we pay the fee. NIL can still be there and it can stack on top of the rev share, but it has to meet a standard. And if it doesn't meet a standard, then you're going to be penalized and they're going to take money from your rev share.

"So it's not just pay-for-play anymore, it's going to be true NIL. Right now, anybody can get anything they want NIL-wise, but that will be different. The rev share will be the critical piece. There's a lot of regulation that will be coming about, so that'll be a positive. But it's not going away, it's just going to change how it's managed."

The simple fact that Swinney appears excited about the idea of compensating players is a bit of a right turn for the head coach. In fact, back in 2019, he went so far as to say he would quit college football if player compensation became the norm in the sport.

Those remarks opened him up to quite a bit of criticism and were often used against him by some members of the media and likely by rival programs on the recruiting trail. However, five years later, Swinney is singing a new tune.

"I did not say that," he said when he was told that he said he didn't want players to be paid. "Never said that. I said I don't want to be a part of the professionalization of college athletics. That's not accurate. The professionalization — which would mean we do away with the scholastic part of college. That's what I said. That's what somebody wrote. That's what people like to put out there, it ain't ever been what I said. I love it. I think it's great because we've kept a scholastic model."

We will never know how Swinney really feels about this new frontier in the sport. But that doesn't matter. What matters most is that he embraces it publicly and becomes the face of Clemson's fundraising, N.I.L., and revenue-sharing efforts. Tuesday, he seemed to take a huge step in that direction.