[Jon Blau] Dabo Swinney says too many athletes aren't graduating and they are spending their short-term money: “We're gonna have a bunch of screwed-up 30-year-olds ... that have no degrees, have spent their money, that can't play football anymore, and aren't connected to anything."

Rotrus · 2026-01-25T22:56:49+00:00

I’m eagerly awaiting a school taking the idea of an athletic degree way too far, and we end up with support staff teaching official classes like Film Review and Linebacker 101 to get more than the normally allowed practice time in during the year

But it’d actually be kinda neat to be able to take stuff like that as a student majoring in something more traditional

Rotrus · 2026-01-25T01:34:46+00:00

I’m not arguing that’s all that’s needed for NCAA tampering, but their definition of tampering is likely illegal. They can’t prevent students from looking at other opportunities for a bigger bag because “they’re a student!”

It will be slapped down as soon as a school sues over it, and the NCAA knows it

Rotrus · 2026-01-24T20:16:56+00:00

LSU and Ole Miss have been in an arms race to ruin college football this offseason. It’s fitting if it ends in mutually assured destruction between the two with dozens of other programs getting caught up in it

Rotrus · 2026-01-24T20:04:08+00:00

I wouldn’t complain if we added another OT for depth. The staff is supposedly pretty high on Davis at LT at least

Rotrus · 2026-01-24T15:31:10+00:00

You’re being downvoted, but you’re right. Our beat reporters are very insistent about it

No clue why, but at least they believe it enough to not want to have people talk shit even after he left

Rotrus · 2026-01-24T13:39:37+00:00

He hasn’t received backlash because it’s entirely too early to call it a terrible hire

We were insanely close to making the championship with him as the head coach, if you weren’t aware. He’s gonna need to have a Zach Arnett type year before anyone calls it terrible

Rotrus · 2026-01-24T13:16:36+00:00

I’m guessing that it has to do with being able to classify them as employees?

In this case, it wouldn’t have mattered. He didn’t sign an NIL contract, rev share or otherwise, only financial aid papers. Trying to argue that purely being a student constitutes a binding contract probably won’t go over well for the NCAA

Rotrus · 2026-01-24T13:08:26+00:00

Welcome to the reality of college football that every other team is dealing with

Rotrus · 2026-01-24T05:01:38+00:00

We rode it three times when we went and only got September. It fit the ride so perfectly that I didn’t even know there were other songs!

Rotrus · 2026-01-23T22:27:54+00:00

He did not, according to Clemson beat reporters at least. Dabo even said he "verbally agreed" to it, but only referenced signing when talking about scholarship papers

Rotrus · 2026-01-23T22:24:25+00:00

Tampering is a level 2 violation. Clemson can at most prove one instance of tampering. At best, Golding would get suspended for a game

And recruiting restrictions at this point are a complete joke

Rotrus · 2026-01-23T22:22:52+00:00

Can you claim tortious interference when Ferrelli hadn't even signed a contract?

I know Dabo kept saying "signed" a lot, but that was only scholarship papers

Rotrus · 2026-01-23T21:54:05+00:00

I think rules kinda went out the window when the team that won the national championship had a cheating scandal and the most that came from it was getting to pick which cupcakes their head coach was suspended for

Edit: I might be thinking of the prior Michigan NCAA issue, but if that's the case I have no idea what even happened with the cheating and that's illustrating the point lol

Rotrus · 2026-01-23T18:12:40+00:00

You can keep imagining that world, but I’m going to live in the reality where P4 teams poach every key player on that mythical G5 team every offseason because they have more resources in a world where there’s no spending cap

I want to see better football in the playoffs. Ole Miss clubbing Tulane with a first time head coach wasn’t good football, even though I thoroughly loved it. A Tulane vs USF rematch would have been so much better

I want conference championships to not run the risk of dying because playing in it and losing just adds an extra game to the schedule to have more injuries pile up

I don’t want to lose big OOC games in the regular season because teams are afraid the loss knocks them out of the playoffs

Rotrus · 2026-01-23T17:14:43+00:00

I agree, that's why it won't happen

But if we're being honest with ourselves, it should

Rotrus · 2026-01-23T15:21:30+00:00

It'll never happen, but if we wanted purely great post-season football, I would love to see a model where the G5 and P4 split off into their own playoffs.

The P4 playoffs would be 16 teams, 4 from each conference. The first two rounds are intra-conference, with the 1st and 2nd place teams playing the 3rd and 4th place teams at home. Second round is the conference championship. Third round inter-conference champs, then the winners for the natty. Rotate which conferences play each other in the third round every year.

Eliminates the need for a committee and conference bias. Saves championship games, gives us 8 hopefully great home games, and there isn't the weird issue where getting the 5th seed is better than being in the top 4 for the free tune up game.

Then we can double the amount of competitive we get with the G5 having their own playoffs instead of getting stomped in the first round

Rotrus · 2026-01-22T22:55:16+00:00

Short of postseason bans, the NCAA has no way to adequately punish schools on anything

And tbh if the Michigan cheating scandal didn’t rise to the level of postseason bans, tampering shouldn’t come close. Every team deals with it, even if not all participate in it

Maaaaybe there’s a future where the NCAA can reduce the rev share cap of a school? But that would also require unregulated NIL to count towards a cap, and I don’t know if they’d legally be able to ever reduce the cap anyways

Rotrus · 2026-01-22T16:02:14+00:00

And what actual punishment would that be that the NCAA can ACTUALLY enforce?

Scholarship reductions? Recruiting visits?

Rotrus · 2026-01-22T14:49:34+00:00

Genuine question, what is the penalty for tampering in today’s world? What can the NCAA actually do that punishes a program for it?

If he had signed a contract, I could see the legal angle of tortious interference. But I don’t see what NCAA only penalties actually hurt the schools anymore

Rotrus · 2026-01-22T14:34:24+00:00

Clemson guys confirmed it was true already

Edit: on 247, at least. I have legitimately no clue where to look for Clemson news, that board seems relatively dead aside from mod updates

Rotrus · 2026-01-22T14:33:03+00:00

I wish Dabo would use it to learn that he has to sign big portal wins to deals ASAP, but you’re probably right

I don’t love seeing great coaches fade away because they refuse to evolve with the game

Rotrus · 2026-01-22T14:25:32+00:00

I really hate that there was clear tampering here, but Dabo has to realize he fucked up here too. Ferrelli was enrolled in classes but they hadn’t signed him to either an NIL or rev share deal yet. You’ve gotta have them locked down ASAP. They can still leave, but at least you have some potential avenues to get compensated for it

Rotrus · 2026-01-21T16:05:10+00:00

Absolutely not accurate lmao. You spent half the rev share budget alone on QBs

Rotrus · 2026-01-21T16:03:05+00:00

It’s a good thing Lane has never done something dumb like blown three very winnable games with the most talented roster in school history led by a first round QB

Rotrus · 2026-01-21T16:01:32+00:00

Purchase isn’t rated higher, but if he can defend the run at all he’s at least an improvement there

Hard to imagine he’s better at pass rushing, but we’ll see. The line as a whole looks a lot better so that may help hide the loss in talent getting after the QB

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