Clemson HC Dabo Swinney Gets Blunt About Team Spending

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The Clemson Tigers have certainly fallen behind the other top teams in the country, and that was evident in their blowout losses to LSU and Miami.

Clemson has gone 3-2 thus far this season, with its three victories coming at the hands of Georgia Southern, North Carolina and California, three programs that, quite frankly, are not exactly elite spenders (although UNC might be on track to getting there).

So do the Tigers' two embarrassing defeats at the hands of LSU and Miami indicate that they are not spending enough themselves?

Head coach Dabo Swinney was asked about Clemson's financial situation this week, and Swinney made it pretty clear that there wasn't much he could do.

“We spend what we got. You can’t spend more than you got,” Swinney said. “So, we try to make every penny that we have (count). We use it to our very best. That is what we do."

Clemson athletic director Graham Neff said over the summer that the Tigers spent around $30 million on football for the 2026-27 academic year, which puts Clemson just outside the top 20 in the nation.

Miami and LSU, for reference, have spent in the neighborhood of $50 million on their respective rosters for this season, which would explain why Clemson got ran off the field in both of those games.

Swinney insisted that the Tigers maximize their resources and that increasing their financial wherewithal would depend on the athletic department.

It's definitely true that Swinney can't spend money that isn't his. He can only use what Clemson allots, so the Tigers' dramatic fall off the last several years in the new NIL era may fall on the school itself more than it does on Swinney.

Of Clemson's final seven games of the 2026 campaign, four of them will come against teams with smaller budgets (Charleston Southern, Syracuse, Georgia Tech and Duke) and three of them will come against programs with similar budgets (Virginia Tech, Florida State and South Carolina).

Perhaps not so surprisingly, none of those teams are top-tier schools. Even Florida State, which was once one of the truly elite football programs in the country, is no longer in that league anymore.

We know that Swinney does not like utilizing the transfer portal, but last winter, he did nab 11 transfers. Unfortunately, none of them were actually big-time players.

Those players went to the schools with larger budgets … like LSU and Miami.

Unless Clemson can find a way to open up more money for spending, the Tigers might never find a way back to the top, regardless of whether or not Swinney is at the helm.

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