College football is no longer a sport where players value loyalty over hype. With the transfer portal and NIL dominating roster building, the chances of tampering keep multiplying, and there are no set rules. That’s exactly Florida’s legendary coach’s blunt message for Clemson’s head coach, Dabo Swinney.
“I thought by now somebody would have told Dabo, ‘Dabo, there ain’t no rules anymore,’” Steve Spurrier said to the reporters ahead of his induction into the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame. “They are still on the books, I guess, back there, but you can’t do it after this day or that day.”
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Dabo Swinney publicly raised concerns over tampering after Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding tried to contact their linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who signed with the Tigers but later flipped to the Rebels. Now, reports suggest he got a $2 million contract for 2 years, which only further fueled the need for rules.
While Swinney laments the chaos, other programs are thriving in it. Look no further than Michigan’s top recruit, Bryce Underwood, who reportedly landed a massive NIL deal of $10.5 million before ever taking a college snap. It’s a world where teams can completely rebuild through the portal, a strategy that has propelled programs to new heights.
If it weren’t for NIL, teams like JMU and Tulane would’ve never entered the playoffs last season. Clemson now faces the need to adjust to that change.
While Dabo Swinney has 187 career wins and two national championships, the team has struggled to maintain momentum in recent years. Clemson has missed the playoffs in each of the last four seasons and finished with its worst record since 2010, going 7-6. Dabo Swinney’s NIL struggles are clearly visible, and even analysts like Matt Hayes publicly pointed that out. The portal works on the “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying” mindset, and Clemson clearly isn’t adjusting to that mindset.
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With the NIL era beginning, Clemson lost 20 games. They entered 2025 with national title expectations but couldn’t make an impact. Even Spurrier believes Swinney’s resistance to NIL is making things worse for his team.
“I think Dabo has learned now he’s got to start paying his players just like everybody else is, or you’ll get left behind,” Spurrier said. “You can complain, but I don’t know (what) good it’s going to do. There’s no rules. Somebody tell Dabo there’s no rules now.”
With that, even Clemson’s quarterback, Cade Klubnik, saw his NIL valuation drop by an estimated $435k after losing to Syracuse, which shows how NIL directly influences the team’s performance. So, for now, Clemson needs to step up its game.
But Swinney isn’t entirely alone in his call for order. Kentucky head coach Will Stein agrees that rules should be followed, though he offers a different perspective on navigating the current landscape.
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Kentucky head coach Will Stein gets real on Dabo Swinney’s plea
Kentucky head coach Will Stein believes a simple solution exists for the tampering chaos Swinney is fighting.
“You have to have really smart people around you, and you have to do the right thing. It’s really simple,” said Stein regarding the solution for tampering. “I got one rule, like, accountability is huge in our program: be where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there, doing what you’re supposed to be doing with perfect effort, like, take care of that.”
Stein makes it clear that the locker room should remain intact. He wants the rules to ensure there’s no direct contact with the players, something that Dabo Swinney has been asking for since the end of the season.
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“You can’t text or call guys. You can’t do that, so don’t do it,” Stein said. “It’s not that hard. I don’t understand why it can be so difficult for coaches, and that’s the rules, and that’s what Dabo said. If that’s the rule, then follow the rule.”
So, now it will be interesting to see whether Swinney’s rant is taken into account or whether Steve Spurrier actually has a point.
