Dabo Swinney evaluates where Clemson stands with NIL, what help is coming

As the college football landscape continues to shift, Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney shared his feelings on where the team currently stands as it relates to NIL and what kind of help could be coming to the program.

This comes as Clemson and other programs around the country prepare to implement the House Settlement and the revenue sharing that’s going to be coming with that moving forward.

“The NIL is gonna be different come July,” Dabo Swinney said. “It’s gonna have to meet a standard. Right now, there’s no standard. ‘Hey, how are you doing,’ and he can give me 20 million dollars. There’s no standard, but come July there’s gonna be a standard. That’s why we went out and hired ESM. That’s one of the best sports marketing agencies in the entire country, and we pay the fee. NIL will still be there and it can still be there and it can stack on top of the rev share, but it has to meet a standard. And if it doesn’t meet a standard, then you’re going to be penalized and they’re going to take money from your rev share.”

The House Settlement stems from a lawsuit brought against the NCAA and is going to say former athletes receive backpay. On top of that, it’s going to allow schools to share revenue with their athletes. As much as $23 million is going to be paid to athletes.

“So, it’s not just pay-for-play anymore, it’s gonna have to meet an actual standard. All third party regulated, which I think is gonna be really really good for everyone,” Swinney said. “Right now, anybody can get anything they want NIL-wise, but that will be different. So, the rev share will be the critical piece. The NIL will have to meet a true standard. There’s a lot of regulation that will be coming about with that. So that’ll be a positive, but it’s not going away, it’s just going to change how it’s managed.”

That revenue sharing is between all sports programs at a school and it will be up to the school to decide how much each program gets. While Dabo Swinney didn’t get into anything more specific, he did share that football will be in good shape at Clemson.

“Ain’t nobody gonna have more money than Clemson,” Swinney said. “Nobody. For the first time ever. So, that’ll be good. That’ll be good.”

Dabo Swinney on scholarships moving forward

One major change coming to college football is how scholarships are handled moving forward. Teams are going to be at 105, which could lead to its own challenges.

“Scholarships are the same, they don’t go away,” Dabo Swinney said. “That’s an institution decision, and there are still conversations happening in league offices and all that stuff. But everybody’s going to 105, and it is what it is there. We’ve had plenty of conversations about that. There’s lots of flexibility what you do with the 105 and how you use those scholarships. You could stay at 85 and rev share guys more — everybody’s gonna be at 105 one way or another. The scholarship is a big deal. That’s a big deal.”

The main challenge that Dabo Swinney sees with this change is how coaches manage rosters now that they’re more limited in the number of players who are going to be allowed on the team at a given time.

“It’ll be different for sure, but we’ve got to make it work. We’ve talked about the walk-on situation, and people don’t understand the challenges in college football that are so different from the NFL. We have a 20-hour rule. You have 17 hours Monday through Friday to get your team ready. When you walk out on the practice field, you’re really limited in your time, so you have to be very efficient. That’s why the walk-ons have always been so important because you have scout teams. Now you’re going to be really limited on your scout teams, and then your roster dwindles. Injuries. You can’t just put anybody at left guard,” Swinney said.

“I’m hoping that there’ll be maybe some changes that might come around somewhere along the way — maybe we don’t have to cut to 105 until the first game, that would be great. I don’t know if that’ll happen or not, I’m just spitballing, pie in the sky here. That would be a great thing so then you could at least have plenty of people that can practice. There’s kids all over this campus that want to be a part of your team, they want to come practice. The women’s basketball team has six or seven guys that practice every single day. That’s what they do. They’re students here, and they come serve their classmates. I don’t know why that’s a problem. So, my hope is we don’t have to declare the roster until the first game, so at least you’ve got bodies to get through camp.”

Another idea that Dabo Swinney had related to dealing with injuries throughout the season. In particular, finding a way to replace players with students on campus when injuries occur.

“Then, my other hope is, if you lose two linemen for example and they’re out for the year, and you had 18 on the roster or whatever it was — man, I could send out an email to campus and say, ‘Looking for a couple walk-on linemen to come practice. And they all show up and we test ’em, weigh ’em, run ’em — ‘We’ll take you two.’ They just come in and they’re on your scout team. That way, you can always be at that 105. Why is that a problem? As long as they’re in school, as long as they’re here — Sammy Watkins ain’t gonna just come hang out on campus and wait for you to call him. Nobody is stashing players,” Swinney said.

“Here’s your roster. Just like Jonathan Weitz last year. Or let’s just say your kicker got in a bad car wreck and he’s out for the year. You mean to tell me we can’t have a kicker try out, and be able to add a guy? To me, there’s just a lot of those things that need to be worked out, because we don’t have access to any players. In the NFL, if you’ve got eight linemen, you never go below eight linemen. If you lose a guy, you just go get a guy off somebody’s practice squad and bring ’em in, or you bring a guy in on Tuesday, try him out and he plays on Sunday. We don’t have access to players. You can’t go get somebody from the algebra class and put him in the algebra class here. It doesn’t work that way.”

While Dabo Swinney isn’t sure specifically how it would work, he does feel that there are different ways to make rosters more flexible.

“To me, at a minimum, if we’re gonna be at 105, and we manage that, we need to be able to stay there,” Swinney said. “If you lose a guy, we should be able to add, whether it’s a practice squad or whatever and they’re not on the team but just a group of guys that we could — all these kids we’re cutting that stay in school that would love to come and practice, why is that a problem? I don’t know why that would be a problem. Maybe it’s an IR. Maybe it’s, ‘Okay, this guy’s out two weeks so you can come practice two weeks. Whatever. We need some flexibility there. We’re not there yet. I’m just making stuff up here.”

More from Dabo Swinney on revenue sharing

Recruiting has changed rapidly in the NIL era, with instances like Michigan commit Bryce Underwood flipping from LSU after reports that he was offered $10-12 million to play at Michigan over four seasons. Despite that, Dabo Swinney believes that revenue sharing will likely change that to an extent.

There’s gonna be some order,” Dabo Swinney said. “There’s a cap. It’s all been negotiated. There’s a percentage that it goes up every year. This is not stuff I made up. It is what it is. So, you can give whatever you want. You can give all your rev share to one player if you want to, but then nobody else gets a dime. So, as far as the rev share part, for the first time, we will be able to because everything has been just an NIL thing. Now, it’s gonna be rev share. We’ve always had the money at Clemson. We just haven’t been able to share it.”

Essentially, Swinney shared that everyone will have access to the same amount of money as one another and can distribute it among their programs however they feel. That means one school shouldn’t inherently have more money than another.

“So, now we can. There’s a cap. It goes up a little and you decide how you’re gonna split it up and your roster and the makeup of your roster will determine how that goes. If you’ve got a fourth-year quarterback coming that’s a three-year starter, well you best believe he’s gonna do pretty good. It’s just the way it is. If you’ve got a sophomore quarterback who’s unproven, he’s probably not gonna do as well as that fourth-year guy because you might have a fourth-year left tackle that you’ve got more money into. Those are decisions that you have to make year to year, but everybody will have the same money,” Swinney said.

“What I say, ‘Nobody is gonna have more money than Clemson,’ that’s because of the commitment from our administration. If you understand the lawsuit, the settlement, there’s a pile of money and that’s for everyone. It’s a local decision on how schools divide that up. They could give football 5 percent if they’re a school and they could give basketball 95 percent or baseball 95 percent. They could divide it up how they want. That’s a university deal. At Clemson, we’re gonna be as good as anybody out there. Nobody will have more money than what we will have the opportunity. So, that’s a good thing. That’s a positive.”

The changes to revenue sharing due to the House Settlement should begin to be implemented as early as 2025.