Should and/or How to Leverage Transfer Portal?

[TigerRock]

I get it. Coach Swinney prefers to recruit young men that fit our culture and sustain the tightly knit All-In family. I don’t blame him — I’d prefer that too. At the same time, he wants to create competitive advantage at every opportunity. A friend of mine recently said that a transfer star QB on a playoff team was an anomaly, to which I replied “maybe so, but we just got beat by 2 in 2 years”. Fields and Sermon looked like the two best offensive skill players on the field last week, both obviously transfers.

The TP is a reality, whether any of us like it or not. It’s an opportunity for competitive advantage, but doesn’t come without risk to locker room chemistry. Do you think we soon begin to learn to embrace it, reluctantly, as CDS has suggested? I think not. Curious on your take though.

[cutigers2321]

Sheer stubbornness and definitely a disadvantage for us. Not sure how the scholarship numbers work out for say an Ohio State, but I do respect Dabo for keeping kids scholarships that don’t pan out (which I doubt Ohio State does). That also puts us at a disadvantage but understandable one. The notion that a transfer might be bad for the locker room doesn’t make sense to me though, same background check/ interview would be done as with a HS recruit.

[Tiger80]

I don’t think we need players to transfer here from other schools. We need to develop the players that join the team. We have done a poor job developing some players in Position groups like the offensive line. If you have a player join the team from another university they are still going to have the same problems integrating with the people that are already here. That is especially true for certain positions like the O-line.

That being said, I wouldn’t be opposed to excepting someone that transfers. However, they would need to be a very, very good fit with our needs and our culture.

[tigerpawgt]

Dabo emphasizes developing players. It’s a huge part of the culture and a primary way to succeed in recruiting. When a transfer arrives in a sense it’s saying we are done developing some of the current players. I guess that’s the biggest concern for the locker room. Here’s the thing, that’s already happening when a current player decides to transfer from Clemson. They have decided they can’t develop into a starter so time to move on. With the transfer portal the balance between the coaching staff and players for a winning roster is skewed. The players have the leverage and the staff ends up with potential gaps on the depth chart if they don’t consider using the portal in return.

Thus far most Clemson players have stayed until graduation so they get their degree and ability to play right away. That has helped provide the staff a buffer for their recruiting classes, but with sitting out a year going away I can’t see how the portal won’t become a bigger problem.

[Robert Thorne MacRae]

Swinney's process has worked good to date. He has left the door open to use the portal in the future if he has to but he certainly doesn't want to.

I do believe the team could be better in some years if he did use the portal.

[Nebula]

We have managed to keep kids who haven't seen the field much in the first couple of years. Powell for example.



But that isn't always going to be the case. We can't keep batting 0.850 on that.



A time will come when a particular position group is going to get crushed by the transfer portal or just attrition in general. And Dabo won't have much choice outside of considering some transfers.

[Ken]

My guess is Dabo has used the fact that we don't use the portal as a selling point during the recruiting process. For this reason he will not jump into the portal but will first need to change his messaging to new recruits. Even then as Neb stated it will be a one off thing to address a particular need.

[TigerRock]

And addressing a particular need (sporadically) is exactly how it should be used IMO. Bringing someone new to the locker room upsets the “next man up” idea, even if the new guy is a high character person. I think there would be messaging needed for the team as well as for recruiting.

[Will Vandervort]

It has worked out well for Ohio State. Fields and Sermon were both transfers.

[Bill Roberts]

I'm not sure where I saw Dabo's comments on the Transfer Portal, but my read on what he said was we haven't used it and would prefer not to, but the rules are changing, so we will look more into it.

[tigerpawgt]

Regarding team chemistry, I was struck by the support that the Bama starting center got from his teammates when he got injured. I took even greater note when I learned he was a transfer into Bama. Clearly the TP can work for elite teams, so Dabo better figure out his plans. It’s not just a quick fix for a new coaching staff to rebuild a program anymore. It’s not sufficient to say due to injuries and/or transfers out that these are the cards we’ve been dealt and it’s next man up. The next player may in fact not be ready to support the team with functional depth.

[89falcon]

The transfer portal is like looking for a wife on the steps of divorce court....it way work out for you, but there’s usually a reason that they were there.

[hiltonhead]

Seems to me that most kids in the portal want to play right away and be a starter. If that is the case then you would only use it to acquire a starter, otherwise they would just transfer out the following year and be a cancer in your locker room. I would use it very sparingly. I do not think you would be successful using it to bring depth to a particular position.

[Hobcaw Creek]

The right player, in the right situation...sure, I’m all for it. But, the players in the transfer portal are there for a reason, and it’s oftentimes not a great reason.