Swinney’s Worst Fear Is Coming True

In has been almost 10 years since Dabo Swinney was at the podium in Clemson’s old team room located at Memorial Stadium, when a reporter—who had never attended Swinney’s regular in-season weekly press conferences—asked the head coach his thoughts on the Northwestern football players pushing the courts for a players’ union.

“We try to teach our guys, use football to create the opportunities, take advantage of the platform and the brand and the marketing you have available to you,” Swinney responded. “But as far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me. I’ll go do something else, because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.”

There is no doubt that the professionalizing of college athletics is coming in full force in 2025-’26. As The Clemson Insider has detailed over the last two days in our stories on how the House Settlement might affect Clemson Football and how managing a team will change beginning next August, it is becoming clear that college football is becoming a professional sport.

Playing for a college degree does not seem to be the main objective anymore, especially when it comes to landing big-time players. If the athletes decide to opt into the settlement, schools will be required to share revenue with athletes beginning in August of 2025.

The NCAA and conferences have agreed to amend their rules to permit schools to share up to about $21.5 million in athletic revenues with their athletes for the 2025-’26 academic year, with the cap increasing over the next 10 years due to escalators and scheduled recalculations.

Clemson plans to give a large portion of the $21.5 million to its football program, as will other major programs across the country. Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) will also continue to be a factor.

Under the new model, institutions may pay student-athletes directly for their NIL rights. Any institutional NIL payments would apply toward the cap.

Third parties may continue to enter into NIL agreements with student-athletes. Such agreements will be subject to review to ensure they are legitimate, fair market value agreements and not used for pay-for-play.

NIL payments by third parties would not apply toward the cap but must be disclosed to a clearinghouse for review.

In other words, the financial component in an athlete’s decision process will be extremely important and, for some, it likely will be the number one factor.

When you throw in the fact, schools are opting to use an NFL model to handle the cap, a player’s market value and managing a roster, it is easy to see where the college game is going.

Swinney’s worst fear has come true. The scholarship—though one will still be provided—is no longer the incentive anymore. College athletics, in particular college football, has become professional.

Though this writer does not see Swinney hanging up the whistle anytime soon, it does make you wonder how long Clemson’s long-time football coach will hang around in this new world of college football.

As he has said on numerous occasions, this is not the game he signed up for when he became a walk-on at Alabama some 35 years ago. It’s not what we signed up for either as fans of college football.

However, this is the reality of the situation. It is going to go on whether Dabo Swinney or any of us like it or not.