Swinney comes out against proposed NCAA reforms

PINEHURST, N.C. – Sunday afternoon, ACC commissioner John Swofford joined the call for multi-faceted NCAA reforms, including multi-year scholarships and scholarships which reflect the true “cost of attendance” for an institution.

24 hours later, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney came out strongly against them.

When asked during his ACC Kickoff appearance about the reforms, Swinney said multi-year scholarships could be a serious liability for programs and cost of attendance was a problematic issue at best.

“I would be 100 percent against multi-year scholarships,” he said. “Makes zero sense to me whatsoever. I’ve never been a guy that’s running people off. My philosophy is, and I tell the staff this all the time, if we sign a guy, he’s ours, do graduation do we part. You better love him. There’s no buyer’s remorse.

“If I’ve got a guy that’s doing everything I ask of him, he’s going to class, he’s a good citizen, giving me great effort, trying to be a good player, he’s not quite as good as we want him to be, that’s our fault. I’m not going to penalize a guy because he’s not what we maybe thought he was.”

That said…

“He’s got a responsibility too,” Swinney said. “You’re giving out these multi-year things and you don’t’ have anything out there. A guy don’t want to go to class, he’s a discipline problem, he’s embarrassing your program, he’s doing all these things, he’s got a scholarship that’s good for two, three years. He’s lazy, don’t’ want to show up, that’s, I think, the wrong route to take.”

Swinney added that he’s “totally against paying players,” but a stipend – given that it is the same across the board – would be acceptable.

Full cost of attendance is another story.

“You’re getting into some recruiting problems,” he said. “We’ve got enough recruiting problems. Now all of a sudden you’ve got a guy who’s going to be going to Stanford instead of Clemson because he can get more money.”

Florida State pegged as ACC champs: Florida State was the ACC media’s overwhelming preseason choice to win the ACC title, according to poll results released Monday. The Seminoles took 50 of 71 votes cast by Kickoff attendees, with Virginia Tech receiving 18, Clemson 2 and Boston College 1. Clemson was pegged second behind FSU in the Atlantic, followed by N.C. State, BC, Maryland and Wake Forest; VT led the way in the Coastal, followed by Miami, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Virginia and Duke.

Swinney: 100% against multi-year scholarships

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Walker expected to be OK for practice: Swinney said starting senior right tackle Landon Walker, who had an arthroscopic procedure on his knee last week, should be fine for the opening practice Aug. 5.

“He’s a tough guy,” Swinney said. “He had a little irritation on a Wednesday, took some medicine for it. We wanted to check it out and didn’t want anything popping up we didn’t know about, so we stuck a scope in there; it was very clean.”

Swinney said team physician Dr. Larry Bowman took “a little piece” from the knee and called it “as good a scenario as possible.”

“He’ll be ready to roll 100 percent when we start camp,” Swinney said. “It’s not any major surgery, more just trying to make sure he felt 100 percent when we started.”

Young difference-makers: Swinney said that several freshmen could help “immediately” in the return game this fall.

“Sammy Watkins was a guy who was electric in high school, and Mike Bellamy the same way,” he said. “Those two guys for sure. Martavis Bryant is a guy who returned kicks. And getting (Andre) Ellington back, he’s a guy who was a difference-maker for us in the return game.”