Clemson Football transfer offers aren’t ‘real’ offers

I saw a conversation on X yesterday that evolved from Dabo Swinney’s comments on the transfer portal at ACC Kickoff.

Former Clemson quarterback Chase Brice expressed frustration with the discussion of Swinney’s opinion about the transfer portal and the outside perception of his philosophy.

Brice asked a question many of you have probably asked before: Why does everyone continue to harp on this?

CBS and Cover 3 Podcaster Bud Elliott chimed in with this response.

Elliott was kind of giddy about his analogy. It was ok. It could be better.

This did trigger a few Clemson fans who came back with the reality that Swinney ‘has used the portal’ before. They pointed out what others have reported (both behind paywalls as well as on social media) that Clemson did, in fact, offer scholarships to portal players.

For the record, I saw posts from recruiting analysts or insiders regarding three offers to offensive linemen this past spring: Alan Herron (On3), Keylan Rutledge (On3), and Alan Nichols (behind paywall). I don’t usually discuss stuff from behind paywalls but this information has aged. Plus it helps the context of this discussion.

At the beginning of spring practice, Swinney himself stated there were four offers. He didn’t say who the fourth offer was, but deduction leads me to believe it was Austin Blaske.

I have no doubt four scholarship offers were made, but Elliott cast some shade on those claims by Clemson fans.

Thus we get to the real heart of the matter: is a scholarship offer alone a ‘real’ offer?

In other words, can we say that Swinney & Clemson are seriously using the portal when all they have offered is a scholarship, with no realistic expectations of playing time for the player or willingness to negotiate NIL?

Swinney has pointed to playing time as a roadblock to portal takes at Clemson. He isn’t willing to make promises of playing time to recruits. Many other schools are eager to make that part of their offer. Some of those offers of playing time are probably genuine while others are mostly sales tactics. Swinney’s approach guarantees the ethical – no promises made mean no promises broken. That’s respectable.

On NIL, most observers agree Clemson makes NIL part of its pitch. They educate about the typical NIL package and what players can do with their NIL. The Tigers have a lot of resources that can be used by student-athletes. Swinney does not, however, want to negotiate NIL upfront with any recruit. This has often been demonized by writers & fans as participating in ‘bidding wars’ for players.

At the risk of one-upping Elliott’s analogy game, I am going to use one of my own to explain why I agree with Elliott: Clemson isn’t really using the transfer portal just because they have made a handful of scholarship offers.

Some people make a living flipping houses. They take homes that have lower value and renovate them in a way that increases the value. They make a profit by selling the house above the original price they paid plus the cost of the renovations.

These professionals often make lowball offers on homes in hopes of finding a great deal. The less they pay upfront, the more money they could make in the long run.

These professionals aren’t trying to screw anyone over. They aren’t being disingenuous or dishonest. They are simply doing business the way that makes sense and works best for them, no differently than Swinney and Clemson are making offers that work best for the program.

From the perspective of everyone else – the sellers, their agents, their neighbors who have an interest in the selling price because it impacts their own property values – it is still a lowball offer. To everyone except the flippers, the flippers aren’t really making a serious offer. They are fishing to see if they can find someone a little desperate to unload a home well below market value.

The sellers may not shut down the flippers’ offer immediately. They might string the flippers along until they have a chance to consider other offers that are closer to market value. Perhaps they might even start a ‘bidding war’ that isn’t good for the flipper but could be very good for the seller.

Sellers aren’t bad people for doing that, by the way, though fans of the flippers might try to convince you otherwise. Those sellers must not be 'flippers' material'.

Anyone who follows Clemson closely and is objective knows Swinney is serious when his program offers a transfer a scholarship. Swinney is serious about the reasons why he does not want to engage in NIL negotiating or promises of playing time. Swinney has his reasons for not including those components in a transfer offer, but it still equals out to a lowball offer, well below market value.

It's only a ‘good’ offer from Clemson’s perspective.

The classic pushback from Clemson fans will be that the Tigers have so much more to offer than just playing time and NIL, and they are right. There are academics, the culture, the support structure, PAW journey, etc.

The flippers can also point out a lot of benefits to taking their lowball offer that could appeal to the sellers, usually focused on ease of sale and speed. The question of course is if those factors hold the most appeal to the sellers. Are those the points that usually motivate the sellers? Or is maximizing their profit their priority? Again, fans of the flippers will attempt to demonize the sellers for caring about maximizing their profit instead of paying attention to the selling points that would have favored the flippers.

Thus we return to Elliott’s point rephrased as a question: “Is a lowball offer really an offer?”

Well, let's be honest: sometimes those flippers do find the sellers who are desperate to unload. It does work out from time to time.

Similarly, Swinney does find his renovation projects on occasion (Hunter Johnson and Paul Tyson).

Were those real offers? Yes, and each played a reserve role on the team, but let’s be honest: the bones of those homes may have been good but both needed a lot of renovation to make them livable and there was a ceiling for how much money could be made in those neighborhoods.

When it comes to transfers who can actually help Clemson, a scholarship offer alone has not proven to be enough to be successful. Maybe one day it might happen, but until then, it's hard for me to believe the Tigers are serious about using the portal.