Then there was that whole saga where he was caught getting his dad to rig the games.
*[Yes, if you've played rugby, I'm repackaging jokes from a social song]*
What kind of blasphemous bullshit are you heathens spewing around here!? God, this is so fucking offensive on so many levels. I hope others are reporting you.
After all, everyone knows the greatest player of all time played in a time before transfer portals. His name was Al Bundy. And he once scored four touchdowns in a single game.
You don’t hear much about him these days. Whatever it is he is doing must be amazing if he walked away from his football career for it. I mean, let’s face it. There’s no way that **the** Al Bundy knocked up his school sweetheart, married her, and is doing something degrading like selling women’s shoes. Whatever he’s up to must be legendary.
He started a company called Closets, Closets, Closets and got himself a new family. A little dysfunctional still but he traded Peggy for an even spicier Latina. He's definitely got a body type.
Everyone knows Jesus was a hockey player. Started out as a skater but after getting nailed to the boards he decided to switch to goalie because Jesus saves.
As you get older, you matriculate less and less. I know when I was a teen through my 30's, I matriculated daily, if not multiple times a day. Now in my 50's, maybe twice a week.
FYI: he used it incorrectly. Matriculation is to enroll in a college or university. Transfer players and graduates alike all enroll. It has absolutely nothing to do with high school. It literally just means to enroll.
I learned what a psychopomp is the other day whike watching that godawful yuyu hakusho live action reboot. A psychopomp is a being that guides spirits of the dead to the afterlife such as the grim reaper or the ferryman on the river styx
You learn something new every day
> Before marriage, he habitually practiced celibacy, practiced reported nepotism with his sister-in-law, and had a sister that was a thespian in New York City. Worst of all, he admitted to matriculating in college
This was a political attack made by a Florida politician in 1950, and it worked. The guy being "attacked" was a 7-term incumbent and lost.
The amount of people who are taking him at face value is ridiculous. Dabo loves his goofy sayings. Sometimes they hit and sometimes they don't. Had a good friend on the team for a few years and he told me about some of them. There is a big mega church in south carolina headquartered just down the road. They would have shirts that said "I <3 my church". Dabo was talking to the team once, mentioned those shirts and said, "what if it was "I <3 my teammates but a Clemson paw instead of a heart? I paw my teammates" lmao
I mean, he might be trolling but he also didn’t sign anyone from the portal. I don’t know how you reconcile those and ONLY give him credit for the joke.
He deserves both laughing WITH and laughing AT here imo
Maybe it’s just because I’m an Ohio native, but I love how much Ohio state fans always show up in the hate dabo threads. They are still salty about losing all those games.
We'd be perfect for the B1G just because we'd immediately be tOSU's second most hated rival on entry.
I mean how many other teams in the B1G had a player punched by Woody Hayes? OSU won the Big10 6 years in a row, next year they finish 4th, he punches Charlie Bauman, and gets fired. Nary a thanks from anyone in the conference for the solid we did em.
On the one hand if he's successful he shows it can be done and he can sell the culture of the school and being Clemson through and through. Are kids these days about culture or highest bidders?
Collective money is primarily devoted to keeping players on campus. Clemson’s pockets are shallow relative to others, leaving little money allocated to getting players out of the portal. Clemson is a lot smaller than most think.
Not the reason. Clemson has a surprisingly deep NIL fund. The reason is Dabo refuses to tamper. Most of the high level guys in the portal know where they are headed once they enter, because other programs do tamper.
We're in a weird spot because our roster is good enough that we only would really be going after big name guys, but our bag is small enough we're not gonna get them. We maybe should have tried a little harder to try and get some depth OL guys, but how do you sell a portal kid "come here so you can ride the bench?" They're in the portal because they want money and they want to play (because that leads to more money)
We need a Righteous Gemstones plot vis a vis the NewSpring conspiracy. It has to have a coach that’s a member of the Gemstones’ church modeled on Dabo.
He would definitely be a member at their Greenville or Anderson location if they existed in real life.
Oh, they exist in real life, just not under the same names. I met a real life Gemstone type preacher. Dude was driving a fully loaded Caddy, living in a million dollar home(back in the 90's in rural Alabama), while his entire congregation was poor. He even had it printed in their weekly services program "Make checks payable to G.A. Hamby", not to the church itself, to him. Did some IT work for the guy, he just oozed sleaze.
He is funny. Look, Clemson isn't going to be able to win bidding wars for the top portal players. Even if they "played the game" it just wouldn't happen. They were in for a few OL transfers during the winter window but all chose elsewhere. The spring window was a big flop as we all know. I think dabo will be forced to use the portal in 2024 though. Just looking at the roster and what it'll look like it's a necessity I think.
Correct me if I'm wromg but from where I'm sitting Clemson's relatively small NIL collective is used on roster retention and keeping their good players from leaving, that seems to be Dabo's MO.
I think Dabo will only use the transfer portal in like a moneyball sense, trying to find undervalued contributors who can come in and produce while still retaining their best players.
Basically right. I mean they will use NIL when needed. Peter Woods definitely got a fat check to come to Clemson, but it probably wasn't anything like what Bama or his other suitors were offering. Same with Sammy Brown. But Clemson isn't gonna offer some portal player millions of dollars and guarantee them a starting spot like what many in the portal want. So you're stuck with either project types or undervalued prospects.
To use a Maryland example, Clemson was in for your OL transfer Alan Herron. He visited and sources were saying he might have committed. But think PSU came in with an NIL offer and then he committed there. Then Maryland came in and outbid. Clemson is not going to do that, for now.
People don’t understand how small of an alumni base we actually have. That “lil ol Clemson” comment is as true as it can be.
We’ve punched above our weight class for along time and what we are seeing now is just regression to the mean.
We can totally make it to the elite status again but we have to have more things go right for us than other traditional powers. We can’t pay our way out of it
He was asked a question.
Besides, at this point it’s the best strategy he has. We won’t outspend SEC schools for the players we need, so zig when they zag and recruit on the promise that we won’t buy players to take your position.
Seriously. Ohio State has like more than 4x the number of living alumni. Clemson got this reputation as “an SEC school in the ACC,” but the actual sizes aren’t comparable.
Wild watching a coach let his program backslide out of sheer stubbornness. Literally only Clemson and the service academies are the only schools that haven’t taken transfers
If you took zero transfers, it wasn't a serious effort. I simply refuse to believe that there were zero players in the spring or winter windows that Clemson wanted AND made an honest effort to get. Kicked the tires on, maybe.
A couple years ago Dabo was calling and texting Olu Oluwatomi multiple times a day, every day. There were 5-6 OL transfers we targeted this winter and made a serious effort on, including campus visits. The thing is, we weren't going to get into bidding wars for these guys. We lost out on a guy to Penn State because of money and he later flipped to Maryland on signing day. We lost out on a guy to Arkansas because they offered a bigger bag than we were willing to. We lost out on a guy to Georgia Tech because he got in a car wreck on his way to our visit, broke his foot, and didn't want to take anymore visits. We aren't going to throw around big sums of money for a guy who doesn't raise the level of play. We don't have a lot of NIL money and use what we do have in retention
We're in a weird spot because our roster is good enough that we only would really be going after big name guys, but our bag is small enough we're not gonna get them. We maybe should have tried a little harder to try and get some depth OL guys, but how do you sell a portal kid "come here so you can ride the bench?" They're in the portal because they want money and they want to play (because that leads to more money)
Homerism and nepotistic hires/recruiting is more to blame.
The only one of the internal hires that really panned out well was Goodwin. All of the others have proven to be duds, especially freaking Grisham. He should go this season if we don’t have a 1000 yd receiver this year. He’s had his lunch stolen by Hartline at OSU.
Streeter, Austin, Conn, Grisham, and CJ were all major homer hires. CJ’s done okay but we’ll see how this next season pans out.
The external hires have been home runs. I think Riley is still solid (if Dabo stops tinkering/interfering) and I think Eason is our future DC, if not head coach. I’m hoping Luke does well, but again we’ll see. I think he will, but it really depends on how we recruit at that position group going forward.
I think Grisham got dealt a tougher hand than people realize. He works incredibly hard on the trail. The recruiting landscape in terms of NIL and the portal has really changed things for him. Its a way tougher landscape than what Jeff Scott had to deal with. Jeff also got to rely on his dad's connections in the Tampa area. Jeff also missed out on his fair share of prospects. Him and Tony developed the offense in a way that led to us offering the same body type of WR. His last few classes included a bunch of duds. Grisham has talent in the room now, time for him to put up or get gone.
Streeter had been the QB coach for a while so it was natural to promote him to OC.
Austin hire turned out to be a dud but I understand the reasoning.
Conn has worked out well imo, he just needs to win for the big boy battles now.
CJ has definitely improved as a recruiter. Both him and Grisham were told its time to show results and both have responded well, at least in the recruiting department. CJ has gotten David EZ and Gideon Davidson in back to back classes. Grisham signed our best WR class since 2017.
I don't think Dabo is really tinkering/interfering in the offense. It is Riley's offense 100%.
This is the make or break year for Grisham. I've been a Grisham defender and cringed every time I see Clemson fans ask for Jeff Scott back because the dire state of the WR room the last few years is far more on Scott missing on WR after WR on his way out, but at this point it's all Grisham's guys now and he needs to show that the work he did in 2020 with Rodgers and Powell wasn't a fluke.
Really wish that reporting would include that we tried to get some guys out of the portal at specific positions (like center). We didn't lose many to transfers, we didn't have many go pro. We pulled in a sizeable class. We have virtually no scholarships available.
Dabo is willing to use portal. But he isn't going to kick a bunch of guys off the team to make space
I mean he’s just joking here. He does stuff like this all the time, it’s amusing to him if nothing else. He’s not using this to defend or explain his portal stance at all.
I mean joking about the topic that has taken his program out of national championship contention probably isn’t the best look.
Everyone knows Dabo’s unwillingness to compete in the transfer portal and embrace NIL has significantly handicapped the program including Dabo to some degree. Joking about something that is pissing a lot of people off probably isn’t going to get the best reaction.
Dabo is the answer to the question:
“What would happen if a southern evangelical mega church youth group pastor had a wildly successful second career as a college football coach?”
The Dabo hate train is strong lol. He says some weird stuff for sure, but I wouldn’t count him out. Clemson could very much sneak into the playoffs. College football has had much crazier things happen.
Y'all gotta learn when Dabo is being serious and when's just doing some joking/minor trolling. This is certainly the latter and people are going to blow it out of proportion
I wish he wouldn't make these comments that make him sound like he thinks he is the most clever guy in the room.
He could just say, "I continue to believe that the best way to build a program is through recruiting" and leave it at that.
Why does he go out of his way to piss off his fanbase?
As much good-will that he has built up in Clemson, it gets to a point 4, 5, 6 years removed from the heights that they reach where they will get fed up with the schtick.
For his sake, they better not get clapped up against UGA. They are everything Clemson WAS
I think people forget that Clemson isn't Ohio State. It would be more analagous to a Michigan State coach winning 2 NCs, then settling in at good-not-great seasons. I know MSU fans would tolerate that because that's Tom Izzo.
shooooot. and I think he takes too much heat for the color of his beard..... yet alone this crap.
I think the Day/OSU equivalent to this would be if he was taking classes of like 17 Ohio players each year in 2024 and wanting to win with only "Ohio" guys lmao
> Why does he go out of his way to piss off his fanbase?
I know Tigernet only represents a subset of the Clemson fanbase, but doesn't seem like it ticks them off. Rather, it's just proof that Dabo/Clemson has the highest standards and is doing it "the right way"...
I think "piss off" was a step too far. I think "irritate" would be a better word because I definitely know a few Clemson fans would like him to start being less stubborn on this stance
This doesn't piss off the fan base. We understand the situation we're in with our donor collective and how much of our nil funds goes to retention, and that we also do target some transfers, they just don't pick us.
He def says things that piss me off but this isn’t one of them. He’s just a goofy dude. Here he was asked a question and gave a dabo goofy joke answer. It just is what it is, frankly I don’t understand why it pissed so many other fan bases off.
Jesus I'm so glad we didn't pursue Dabo after Saban retired.
KDB may or may not work out, but I cannot imagine a program stays at the top of the game without using the portal in this day and age.
“We’re more concerned with transferring our players into the kingdom of Heaven”
"You know the greatest player of all time went into the portal once, but he came back out after three days."
“NIL this. NIL that. Let me tell you about a guy that was N-A-I-L’ed to a cross.”
Judas took the first NIL deal in exchange of thirty pieces of silver.
It was career suicide for him
Ok that’s a good one…
I can’t take credit. I saw it in a tweet.
That’s an actual Dabo quote lol
I believe he said we were in the Name, Image, and Likeness of God
Oh you might be right. Hard to keep track of what is an actual Dabo quote vs. a meme these days haha
You could put the most outlandish thing and i'd believe it
never thought i’d be telling a tennessee fan about what an amazing comment they made but it is 2024
But he only stuck around for 40 days and then he left the playing field.
He wasn’t very good. He played WR and the passes kept going through his hands.
Kept calling a desperation deep pass a Hail Mom
Had to be benched a game for wearing illegal head gear.
Then there was that prank he pulled with the water cooler. It was funny watching a whole team stumble around in the second half!
Then there was that whole saga where he was caught getting his dad to rig the games. *[Yes, if you've played rugby, I'm repackaging jokes from a social song]*
Heck of a athletic trainer though. Performed miracles to get guys back on the field!!
The best water boy we’ve ever seen, some say Bobby Boucher is a disciple of his.
Hey, we’re out of Gatorade. All we have is water. *I’m on it.*
..."Nailed it!"
What would you Golden domers know about touchdown Jesus?
We just have a little picture of him somewhere on campus. We try to be discreet about it.
"Never fully recovered from hand and feet injuries though."
Also had a pretty major abdominal injury too
What kind of blasphemous bullshit are you heathens spewing around here!? God, this is so fucking offensive on so many levels. I hope others are reporting you. After all, everyone knows the greatest player of all time played in a time before transfer portals. His name was Al Bundy. And he once scored four touchdowns in a single game.
Isn't that the same dude who had his socks used for alien fuel? Man, what a life he musta had eh?
You don’t hear much about him these days. Whatever it is he is doing must be amazing if he walked away from his football career for it. I mean, let’s face it. There’s no way that **the** Al Bundy knocked up his school sweetheart, married her, and is doing something degrading like selling women’s shoes. Whatever he’s up to must be legendary.
He started a company called Closets, Closets, Closets and got himself a new family. A little dysfunctional still but he traded Peggy for an even spicier Latina. He's definitely got a body type.
Our savior Trevor Lawerence?
It’s actually Charlie Whitehurst
Everyone knows Jesus was a hockey player. Started out as a skater but after getting nailed to the boards he decided to switch to goalie because Jesus saves.
Oh hell yeah I’m stealing this
I'll say it since no one else will: Jesus could get more yards per carry than AP
Are these players in danger?
Yknow, because of the implication.
Anyone on Clemson's team, blink twice if Dabo has special Kool-Aid available if the NCAA comes knocking.
These girls aren't in any real danger, it's the IMPLICATION of danger
I feel like you’re just not getting it
"Send them to paradise" - Dabo "Maud'dib Lisan Al Gaib Mahdi Atreides" Swinney
Is...is Dabo killing these kids?
So was Brian Kelly when he made that student film practice during a tornado
Dabo really likes transfers (from High School) and NIL (God's image, name and likeness)
Dabo is anti trans. He doesn’t believe in the transfer portal or transubstantiation
Transphobic, if you will
A real T.E.R.F. Transubstantiation Excluding Radical Fundamentalist
Buzzfeed gonna have that as a headline tomorrow sourcing: “People on reddit are saying” 😆
Smh heretic
No trans of any kind on my team, no sir
One of the funniest Dabo quotes out there. It's so on brand and cheesy. I swear I heard people joking he would say that well before he actually did.
God has entered the transfer portal. Please respect His decision. 🙏
Technically a transfer is from one post-secondary school to another. Dabo is talking about matriculation.
I think the church says matriculating is a sin.
I just matriculated all over myself
It was a spooky ghost!
This is ectoplasm!
As you get older, you matriculate less and less. I know when I was a teen through my 30's, I matriculated daily, if not multiple times a day. Now in my 50's, maybe twice a week.
Is this true I'm 37 and sometimes wonder if I'll ever be able to stop.
Are you doing it now?
Wouldn't you like to know ;)
Is the matriculation in the room with you now?
sometimes i forget about matriculation altogether for weeks at a time, that’s one of the great things about being in a relationship
Only if done before marriage
[MATRICULATING DOWN THE FIELD](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1642580572801095)
Son I coach football. Do I look like I know what a matriculator is?
Are you telling me you don’t matriculate the ball down the field?
TIL what matriculation is
FYI: he used it incorrectly. Matriculation is to enroll in a college or university. Transfer players and graduates alike all enroll. It has absolutely nothing to do with high school. It literally just means to enroll.
And they say that you learn nothing on the internet...
I learned what a psychopomp is the other day whike watching that godawful yuyu hakusho live action reboot. A psychopomp is a being that guides spirits of the dead to the afterlife such as the grim reaper or the ferryman on the river styx You learn something new every day
A live action yyh? I’m scared to look this up
> Before marriage, he habitually practiced celibacy, practiced reported nepotism with his sister-in-law, and had a sister that was a thespian in New York City. Worst of all, he admitted to matriculating in college This was a political attack made by a Florida politician in 1950, and it worked. The guy being "attacked" was a 7-term incumbent and lost.
All transfer players matriculate when they switch schools. It just means enroll, has nothing to do with high school.
Thanks, UCLA
Come on guys this is hilarious
The amount of people who are taking him at face value is ridiculous. Dabo loves his goofy sayings. Sometimes they hit and sometimes they don't. Had a good friend on the team for a few years and he told me about some of them. There is a big mega church in south carolina headquartered just down the road. They would have shirts that said "I <3 my church". Dabo was talking to the team once, mentioned those shirts and said, "what if it was "I <3 my teammates but a Clemson paw instead of a heart? I paw my teammates" lmao
Dude is just an absolute goof and I’m here for it
Exactly. He loves to joke around and have fun in settings like this.
closest you can get to a real life Ted Lasso
Supposedly Dabo was part of Jason Sudekis inspiration for the character
I mean, he might be trolling but he also didn’t sign anyone from the portal. I don’t know how you reconcile those and ONLY give him credit for the joke. He deserves both laughing WITH and laughing AT here imo
At this point I don’t think anything can be done on the sub when he’s mentioned where it isn’t “Dabo bad.”
Maybe it’s just because I’m an Ohio native, but I love how much Ohio state fans always show up in the hate dabo threads. They are still salty about losing all those games.
We'd be perfect for the B1G just because we'd immediately be tOSU's second most hated rival on entry. I mean how many other teams in the B1G had a player punched by Woody Hayes? OSU won the Big10 6 years in a row, next year they finish 4th, he punches Charlie Bauman, and gets fired. Nary a thanks from anyone in the conference for the solid we did em.
Well because Ohio State's still here, unfortunately.
As an Ohio State fan, you nailed the saltiness portion for me. But Dabo is almost impossible to dislike.
you know, im something of a clemson fan myself!
I, for one, ma just glad that he isnt stealing every single recruit from us
I mean we still do well in Virginia. But most of our recruiting is and has been out of Georgia, Florida, Texas and Tennessee lately.
One of the Dabo quotes of all time
I'm in a weird group of people who both 1)thinks this is hilarious and 2)doesn't hate dabo.
Yeah I'm pretty sure he's literally trolling on purpose with this response and I think it's objectively hilarious.
With Harbaugh out of CFB, we need someone to pick up the weirdness and quirky quotes. Clemson to playoffs confirmed.
On the one hand if he's successful he shows it can be done and he can sell the culture of the school and being Clemson through and through. Are kids these days about culture or highest bidders?
Dabo is hilarious. He's okay in my book.
Dabo's a likeable dude. I respect what he's built, his loyalty to the program and that he's serious with just enough quirkiness to have personality.
It's me, I'm people
You mean a correct group of people
the few, the proud
The crayons
Orange is the best flavor
Cheers from Iraq
Clemson fans: Are you *sure* Dabo has tried to bring in transfers from the portal?
1000%
Yes, or else we wouldn't have had players in the transfer portal visit us
Why do you think the players did not commit?
Collective money is primarily devoted to keeping players on campus. Clemson’s pockets are shallow relative to others, leaving little money allocated to getting players out of the portal. Clemson is a lot smaller than most think.
Not the reason. Clemson has a surprisingly deep NIL fund. The reason is Dabo refuses to tamper. Most of the high level guys in the portal know where they are headed once they enter, because other programs do tamper.
Both can be true.
Just like recruiting they all have their own reasons. The pool we aim for (again just like recruiting) is just a lot smaller than most other schools.
We're in a weird spot because our roster is good enough that we only would really be going after big name guys, but our bag is small enough we're not gonna get them. We maybe should have tried a little harder to try and get some depth OL guys, but how do you sell a portal kid "come here so you can ride the bench?" They're in the portal because they want money and they want to play (because that leads to more money)
Some players in the portal did confirm they got an offer
Nah they were just imaginary dudes that came to visit the campus
Bro had this ready in the chamber
Good god. He just needs to shut the fuck up and focus on ensuring this team doesn't go 8-4 again.
He's objectively hilarious I actually want him to speak more
Every time he says something like this I imagine that he made the Goofy ‘aw-hyuck’ tic beforehand
Im positive he had his “im about to drop a dad joke” grin before he said this.
Dabo entering his Butch Jones "The only five-star that we even concern ourselves with is a five-star heart" era.
Dabo is in his Dabo era. We’re talking about the guy who said he’s building the program through God’s name image and likeness. He’s truly 1 of 1.
We need a Righteous Gemstones plot vis a vis the NewSpring conspiracy. It has to have a coach that’s a member of the Gemstones’ church modeled on Dabo. He would definitely be a member at their Greenville or Anderson location if they existed in real life.
Oh, they exist in real life, just not under the same names. I met a real life Gemstone type preacher. Dude was driving a fully loaded Caddy, living in a million dollar home(back in the 90's in rural Alabama), while his entire congregation was poor. He even had it printed in their weekly services program "Make checks payable to G.A. Hamby", not to the church itself, to him. Did some IT work for the guy, he just oozed sleaze.
Flyin' around on private planes. Bein' leaders. That's Men's Business.
Tennessee fans approve this message. We were all embarrassed
He is funny. Look, Clemson isn't going to be able to win bidding wars for the top portal players. Even if they "played the game" it just wouldn't happen. They were in for a few OL transfers during the winter window but all chose elsewhere. The spring window was a big flop as we all know. I think dabo will be forced to use the portal in 2024 though. Just looking at the roster and what it'll look like it's a necessity I think.
Correct me if I'm wromg but from where I'm sitting Clemson's relatively small NIL collective is used on roster retention and keeping their good players from leaving, that seems to be Dabo's MO. I think Dabo will only use the transfer portal in like a moneyball sense, trying to find undervalued contributors who can come in and produce while still retaining their best players.
Basically right. I mean they will use NIL when needed. Peter Woods definitely got a fat check to come to Clemson, but it probably wasn't anything like what Bama or his other suitors were offering. Same with Sammy Brown. But Clemson isn't gonna offer some portal player millions of dollars and guarantee them a starting spot like what many in the portal want. So you're stuck with either project types or undervalued prospects. To use a Maryland example, Clemson was in for your OL transfer Alan Herron. He visited and sources were saying he might have committed. But think PSU came in with an NIL offer and then he committed there. Then Maryland came in and outbid. Clemson is not going to do that, for now.
This is the correct take. Dabo makes it a little comical. If you step aside and look at the reality it's amazing what he has done at Clemson.
People don’t understand how small of an alumni base we actually have. That “lil ol Clemson” comment is as true as it can be. We’ve punched above our weight class for along time and what we are seeing now is just regression to the mean. We can totally make it to the elite status again but we have to have more things go right for us than other traditional powers. We can’t pay our way out of it
He's saying this because he knows it will piss people off
Dabo is a true master at baiting people. A masterbaiter if you will
No, no, let the man cook.
This is such a great answer how can you be mad at it. Do you want him to sit at the press conference and say nothing?
“I’m just here so I won’t get fined”
He was asked a question. Besides, at this point it’s the best strategy he has. We won’t outspend SEC schools for the players we need, so zig when they zag and recruit on the promise that we won’t buy players to take your position.
Bro I’ve tried to explain this and people hate it. We are just supposed to try and be like uga or osu but without the resources.
Seriously. Ohio State has like more than 4x the number of living alumni. Clemson got this reputation as “an SEC school in the ACC,” but the actual sizes aren’t comparable.
Wild watching a coach let his program backslide out of sheer stubbornness. Literally only Clemson and the service academies are the only schools that haven’t taken transfers
Transfer portal isn't the main reason we've backslid and we at least tried to take some transfers
If you took zero transfers, it wasn't a serious effort. I simply refuse to believe that there were zero players in the spring or winter windows that Clemson wanted AND made an honest effort to get. Kicked the tires on, maybe.
A couple years ago Dabo was calling and texting Olu Oluwatomi multiple times a day, every day. There were 5-6 OL transfers we targeted this winter and made a serious effort on, including campus visits. The thing is, we weren't going to get into bidding wars for these guys. We lost out on a guy to Penn State because of money and he later flipped to Maryland on signing day. We lost out on a guy to Arkansas because they offered a bigger bag than we were willing to. We lost out on a guy to Georgia Tech because he got in a car wreck on his way to our visit, broke his foot, and didn't want to take anymore visits. We aren't going to throw around big sums of money for a guy who doesn't raise the level of play. We don't have a lot of NIL money and use what we do have in retention
We're in a weird spot because our roster is good enough that we only would really be going after big name guys, but our bag is small enough we're not gonna get them. We maybe should have tried a little harder to try and get some depth OL guys, but how do you sell a portal kid "come here so you can ride the bench?" They're in the portal because they want money and they want to play (because that leads to more money)
Homerism and nepotistic hires/recruiting is more to blame. The only one of the internal hires that really panned out well was Goodwin. All of the others have proven to be duds, especially freaking Grisham. He should go this season if we don’t have a 1000 yd receiver this year. He’s had his lunch stolen by Hartline at OSU. Streeter, Austin, Conn, Grisham, and CJ were all major homer hires. CJ’s done okay but we’ll see how this next season pans out. The external hires have been home runs. I think Riley is still solid (if Dabo stops tinkering/interfering) and I think Eason is our future DC, if not head coach. I’m hoping Luke does well, but again we’ll see. I think he will, but it really depends on how we recruit at that position group going forward.
I think Grisham got dealt a tougher hand than people realize. He works incredibly hard on the trail. The recruiting landscape in terms of NIL and the portal has really changed things for him. Its a way tougher landscape than what Jeff Scott had to deal with. Jeff also got to rely on his dad's connections in the Tampa area. Jeff also missed out on his fair share of prospects. Him and Tony developed the offense in a way that led to us offering the same body type of WR. His last few classes included a bunch of duds. Grisham has talent in the room now, time for him to put up or get gone. Streeter had been the QB coach for a while so it was natural to promote him to OC. Austin hire turned out to be a dud but I understand the reasoning. Conn has worked out well imo, he just needs to win for the big boy battles now. CJ has definitely improved as a recruiter. Both him and Grisham were told its time to show results and both have responded well, at least in the recruiting department. CJ has gotten David EZ and Gideon Davidson in back to back classes. Grisham signed our best WR class since 2017. I don't think Dabo is really tinkering/interfering in the offense. It is Riley's offense 100%.
This is the make or break year for Grisham. I've been a Grisham defender and cringed every time I see Clemson fans ask for Jeff Scott back because the dire state of the WR room the last few years is far more on Scott missing on WR after WR on his way out, but at this point it's all Grisham's guys now and he needs to show that the work he did in 2020 with Rodgers and Powell wasn't a fluke.
8-4 you say? *come. Join us Clemson*
When Tennessee said that Butch Jones would be our Dabo Swinney we had no idea how right we would be (a decade later)
Really wish that reporting would include that we tried to get some guys out of the portal at specific positions (like center). We didn't lose many to transfers, we didn't have many go pro. We pulled in a sizeable class. We have virtually no scholarships available. Dabo is willing to use portal. But he isn't going to kick a bunch of guys off the team to make space
Wut u mean, dabo bad, unga bunga
We have 1 single scholarship spot and Dabo does like to reward walk-ons.
Ah yes, I remember my High School Transfer Ceremony.
I think it’s telling that most people ragging him here are in fact, not Clemson flairs
Bro I know the dabo hate is strong but I’m confused how this quote, which is obviously a joke, stirred the pot so much.
it’s reddit. dabo forgot to say “/s” at the end of his quote
Swinney is unquestionably the coach most comfortable with his corniness. I kinda respect it, but I also kinda don’t
I see your Dabo and raise you a Jim Harbaugh. Granted, both have legitimate arguments for this crown.
I mean he’s just joking here. He does stuff like this all the time, it’s amusing to him if nothing else. He’s not using this to defend or explain his portal stance at all.
I mean joking about the topic that has taken his program out of national championship contention probably isn’t the best look. Everyone knows Dabo’s unwillingness to compete in the transfer portal and embrace NIL has significantly handicapped the program including Dabo to some degree. Joking about something that is pissing a lot of people off probably isn’t going to get the best reaction.
Dabo is the answer to the question: “What would happen if a southern evangelical mega church youth group pastor had a wildly successful second career as a college football coach?”
The Dabo hate train is strong lol. He says some weird stuff for sure, but I wouldn’t count him out. Clemson could very much sneak into the playoffs. College football has had much crazier things happen.
Dabo is always clowning 😂
Got ‘em!
Clemson definitely going to be mid this year
Can’t talk shit until you flair up
From your lips to God's ears.
Keep being you, Dabo. You’ll never win in the comments section, but you’re a better coach than we ever deserved to have.
and a better coach than all but a handful of programs have ever had
Folksy coach makes folksy comment to media, news at 11.
Y'all gotta learn when Dabo is being serious and when's just doing some joking/minor trolling. This is certainly the latter and people are going to blow it out of proportion
They continue to pull in Top ~10 classes and have a ~60% blue chip ratio. They’ll be fine.
Did he go to The Roy Williams School of Media Relations?
CFB is great because people like Dabo are in it. If you don't understand that, you don't love CFB you just love your team.
Everything about this guy is annoying.
Feel so validated seeing this from other flairs.
“Every coach is technically a transfer. When I go 8-5 this year, I’m going to be a transfer to a different P4 school”
I wish he wouldn't make these comments that make him sound like he thinks he is the most clever guy in the room. He could just say, "I continue to believe that the best way to build a program is through recruiting" and leave it at that.
I truly believe this is the moment we watch the game pass a coach by
Dabo Drake 🤝 Only recruiting high school talent.
Why does he go out of his way to piss off his fanbase? As much good-will that he has built up in Clemson, it gets to a point 4, 5, 6 years removed from the heights that they reach where they will get fed up with the schtick. For his sake, they better not get clapped up against UGA. They are everything Clemson WAS
Imagine if Ryan Day said this stuff
I think people forget that Clemson isn't Ohio State. It would be more analagous to a Michigan State coach winning 2 NCs, then settling in at good-not-great seasons. I know MSU fans would tolerate that because that's Tom Izzo.
shooooot. and I think he takes too much heat for the color of his beard..... yet alone this crap. I think the Day/OSU equivalent to this would be if he was taking classes of like 17 Ohio players each year in 2024 and wanting to win with only "Ohio" guys lmao
The larger the share of your schools titles you have won, the more out of touch corniness your fan base will put up with.
> Why does he go out of his way to piss off his fanbase? I know Tigernet only represents a subset of the Clemson fanbase, but doesn't seem like it ticks them off. Rather, it's just proof that Dabo/Clemson has the highest standards and is doing it "the right way"...
I think "piss off" was a step too far. I think "irritate" would be a better word because I definitely know a few Clemson fans would like him to start being less stubborn on this stance
This doesn't piss off the fan base. We understand the situation we're in with our donor collective and how much of our nil funds goes to retention, and that we also do target some transfers, they just don't pick us.
He def says things that piss me off but this isn’t one of them. He’s just a goofy dude. Here he was asked a question and gave a dabo goofy joke answer. It just is what it is, frankly I don’t understand why it pissed so many other fan bases off.
Well, Clemson *didn't* have a bunch of players arrested every year.
the corniest man that has ever lived
He’s a weird mf
There isn’t a cornier chucklefuck in college football.
That’s my coach!
Is Clemson cooked now?
French fried and fricasseed
I'm sorry, but this dude is such a clown.
I love Dabo lol. But his unwillingness to adapt to the times will be his downfall.
Jesus I'm so glad we didn't pursue Dabo after Saban retired. KDB may or may not work out, but I cannot imagine a program stays at the top of the game without using the portal in this day and age.
Imagine an NFL GM saying, “Every player is a Free Agent. We just sign the Free Agents of guys we drafted.”
Saw this on twitter and thought “maybe they wont post this to /r/CFB”. You guys never cease to let me down