Swinney on How Clemson Will Address New Roster Limits

One of the major changes coming to college football next season will be the introduction of new roster limits.

For years, schools have only been allowed 85 scholarship players per season. When you add in the number of walk-ons a program might have from one year to the next, some schools have more than 140 players on the roster in total.

That is the situation Dabo Swinney finds himself in at Clemson. While it isn’t something that needs to be addressed today, the head coach will have some decisions to make before the start of next season, when the new roster limits are slated to take effect.

“We got to cut a ton of guys,” Swinney said. “There are some we want to keep for sure, contributors, but you got to get down to 105.”

With the Tigers set to have just 12 seniors come off of scholarship at the end of the season and 13 players currently committed in the 2025 recruiting class, Swinney said numbers will be tight.

“We’re over with the amount of kids we have committed,” Swinney added. “You kind of plan on normal attrition. There’ll be some kids that maybe just want to play more, don’t like their role, whatever. That’s normal. But we’ve got 12 scholarships seniors. That’s it. We’re at 85 with 12 seniors.”

However, Swinney still feels like Clemson is in a good spot roster-wise ahead of the rules change that is quickly approaching.

“We’re in a good spot. It’s no different year-to-year,” the head coach said. “And then we’ll manage how we fill out the rest of the roster. High school, portal kids, whatever, to kind of make sure we’ve got our 105.”

Swinney also dove into how he goes about making out his roster. While fans would like to sign 5-stars at every position in each recruiting cycle, the head coach maintains that just isn’t possible. For Swinney, it’s all about keeping Clemson a developmental program. He used Ryan Linthicum as an example of one type of player a team needs. The redshirt junior spent his first three years sitting and learning before he saw any real playing time and now he is the Tigers’ starting center.

However, at the end of the day, good spot or not, there are some hard decisions ahead for Swinney when it comes to getting to that 105 number.

“There’s definitely kids on the roster that we are going to want to keep that already contribute,” Swinney said. “We are not going to get 105 Bryant Wesco’s. That’s not reality. It’s never going to happen.”

“You got to be able to practice and prepare, so you got to have a little bit of everything built into your roster. Developmental guys. Guys that are ready day one, and guys that are red shirt juniors like Ryan Linthicum. You got to have a little bit of everything.”

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