Critics fire back as the Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney blames rival budgets for recent struggles, despite leading an elite roster that produced nine NFL Draft picks last season.
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is facing criticism for the comments he made about Notre Dame and NIL spending.
Swinney suggested the Tigers don't have the same resources as other schools to spend on recruiting and the transfer portal. He named Notre Dame as one of the programs who seems to print dollars.
"Notre Dame has their own TV station," Swinney told host Greg McElroy on "Always College Football" this week. "They make their own rules. They print their own money. They got like their own money machine in the backyard or something. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Now it is just different.
"We do not have the same NIL budget as some places have. We do not have some of the same built-in resources from an alumni base and all of that type of stuff. We don't. But guess what? We never have. But you know what we do have? We have enough. We got enough.
"We just have to be good with what we have. ... We have won here for so long because we have been unique in how we have done things. We just have to continue to be that."
On "The Dan Patrick Show" Wednesday, the host took issue with Swinney's comments, arguing that Swinney should have had a better record than 7-6 last season with a roster that sent nine players to the 2026 NFL Draft within the first five rounds.
“If you’re good enough to beat everybody, then what’s the complaint?” Patrick said. “Guess who had nine players drafted this year? Fourth-most nationally--most in the ACC. And they went 7-6... You used to beat these teams. Well, what changed?
"You weren’t embracing the transfer portal to begin with. We said that about NIL. Dabo didn’t want any part of that.”
Swinney is the sixth-highest paid coach in college football. Clearly, the Tigers are putting their resources somewhere.
The coaching staff failed the team in 2025, something Swinney acknowledged after he saw nine players go in the draft. But it's not Notre Dame's fault he can't adjust to the current system.