As a growing number of college programs opt to cancel their spring games due to concerns over tampering and other issues, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney remains steadfast in his approach.
Unlike some of his peers, Swinney is moving forward with the Tigers’ annual spring exhibition, dismissing the reasoning behind these cancellations as largely unfounded – while also taking a subtle shot at Nebraska’s Matt Rhule in the process.
“We’re going to have a spring game and I hope we can have some type of fan day with it as well,” Swinney said. “I don’t know, we’ll see. Listen, whether you have a spring game or not it’s going to be tampering.”
Pushing back on the notion that eliminating spring games would curb player poaching, Swinney pointed to the extensive scouting tools already available to programs.
“Ain’t nobody going to go look at the spring game, go, ‘Oh yeah, boy!'” Dabo said. “They got PFF. That’s called PFF, they’ve got everything on everybody already.
“Canceling the spring game ain’t going to stop tampering. We’re going to need a lot more help than that to stop tampering. And hopefully at some point that’ll happen.”
While Swinney remains committed to holding Clemson’s spring game, he emphasized that his coaching staff will still take precautions with veteran players where necessary.
“I just think, again, when you look at, when you evaluate things, I mean for us for example, you look at your career snaps, your career offensive, defensive snaps and [veteran O-lineman] Blake Miller’s probably top of that list for us,” Swinney said.
“You look at those guys that have played a ton of snaps. Do I really need to see Blake play live this spring? No. He needs to get some work, and he’ll get a lot of work, but you’ll limit his live work. He doesn’t need a lot of live work. But you know who does? All those other dudes.”
Clemson’s annual Orange vs. White spring game is set for April 5 at 1 PM ET, giving fans an early glimpse of the 2025 squad.
The Tigers will kick off their regular season at home against LSU on August 30 at Memorial Stadium.
What are your thoughts on Dabo’s comments? … Where do you stand on the whole spring game debate???
