The Clemson Tigers may have been able to nab Aidan Chiles in the transfer portal, but they chose not to.
The Clemson Tigers were annihilated by LSU, 51-10, in their season opener on Saturday night, and while there was ample blame to go around, a common theme among Tigers fans — and those outside Clemson, as well — seems to be that Dabo Swinney missed the boat on acquiring a quarterback in the transfer portal.
I made it very clear in a recent piece that placing the lion's share of the blame on the shoulders of Christopher Vizzina for Clemson's Week 1 humiliation is disingenuous, but the prevailing thought is that the Tigers at least wouldn't have lost by 41 with more competent quarterback play.
On that note, Will Vandervort of The Clemson Insider has rehashed a pretty sever fumble by the Tigers back in January, when they had the opportunity to pursue former Michigan State signal-caller Aidan Chiles in the transfer portal, but elected not to.
"The Clemson Insider spoke directly with former Michigan State quarterback Aidan Chiles. He told TCI back in January he would love to hear from Clemson and would be interested in going there. However, he never heard from Clemson, and he ended up at Northwestern where he is playing under former Oregon head coach Chip Kelly," Vandervort wrote.
A four-star transfer and a former four-star recruit, Chiles absolutely has impressive talent. However, Chiles was benched during his final season at Michigan State and is now on his third school (he began his career at Oregon State in 2023).
Who is to say that the senior signal-caller would have succeeded at Clemson? We don't know, but the 6-foot-4, 220-pounder would have at least represented another potential option for the Tigers in their thin quarterback room.
It's also worth noting that Chiles looked solid in Northwestern's season-opening win over South Dakota State over the weekend.
"But we were told Swinney shut those possibilities down and decided he was not going to the portal because he felt he already had his starting quarterback on campus," Vandervort added. "It seems Swinney was wrong. Clemson needed to go get an experienced quarterback from the portal, and the sad thing about it is they would have had plenty of good choices to choose from."
Swinney has never liked the transfer portal, but the ironic part of the story is that he utilized the portal more than ever this past winter. Just not for a quarterback.
And at this point, Clemson is becoming less and less appealing of a destination ... so the Tigers may have missed the boat completely.
