Nine picks, seven wins: Clemson's 2026 NFL Draft haul puts more pressure on Dabo to fix on-field shortcomings

Clemson led the nation in returning production heading into last season without adding basically anything from the portal, which would lead you to believe that the Tigers were betting big on their culture and development. That culture component has set Clemson apart throughout Swinney's run in charge, especially when they were truly going toe-to-toe with the Alabama dynasty. One was the joyless winning machine, the other was the Clemson Family. There was reason to believe the Tigers would be back. In fact, it would have been one of the great homegrown talent stories of this new era had the Tigers met expectations last year.

Culture bet in the portal era

It is true that as the years go by, and particularly after revenue-sharing payments came into play, portal use has only increased for championship contenders. Of the four 2024 CFP semifinalists, The Athletic found that all of their starts came from at least 77% high school recruits versus transfers. Penn State was at the high-water mark (88.6%). That drastically decreased in 2025, but of all playoff teams, Georgia (90/10 recruits-to-portal start ratio) showed that a team can still reach a high level the relatively old-fashioned way. Clemson went about that approach last year, too, but where the Dawgs succeeded in getting to the playoff, the Tigers ended up way off the mark.

They took their first scholarship defensive player in the portal, EDGE Will Heldt (ironically, probably Clemson's best defensive player in 2025), along with linebacker Jeremiah Alexander and FCS receiver Tristan Smith. Heldt starred, while Alexander and Smith contributed sparingly. That was it as far as portal takes are concerned, besides Hayes Galloway, who played only on Clemson's scout team.

Yet despite all the stars aligning for a Clemson playoff run, it was Clemson's worst season under Swinney since the program began to take off in 2011 with the first 10-win finish of his tenure. The erosion has been constant since the 2020 season, Trevor Lawrence's last (ending one of the great quarterback runs in the history of the sport across six seasons of Lawrence and Deshaun Watson), and the final one before players were allowed to be compensated via name, image and likeness. You never know when you're in the good old days until they're over, and it is clearer with every year that those were them. If you're a team that doesn't portal, and your internal evaluations and development practices leave a lot to be desired, what do you have to hang your hat on in this era of college football?

Clemson transfer portal class for 2026 🏈

What would failure mean in 2026

In an effort to aid the bounceback, Clemson has upped its portal haul in 2026 relative to their own standards, but it is near the bottom of FBS in transfers taken (10). They're comparable to other bluebloods USC (10), Georgia (9), Notre Dame (7) and BYU (9). But the difference between Clemson's strategy for bouncing back via the portal is almost exclusively on one side of the ball. Eight of the 10 transfers are on defense, and Clemson's secondary will heavily feature portaled pieces. Elliot Washington (Penn State), Jerome Carter III (Old Dominion) and Corey Myrick (Southern Miss) are expected to contribute on the back end. Heldt returns, and sophomore Amare Adams should be next in line of extremely talented interior rushers in purple and orange. Luke Ferelli will not be on this team. The Cal transfer ended up going to Ole Miss, and he is the player who Swinney brought the tampering receipts to the public regarding back in January.

Tom Allen returns as the defensive coordinator to oversee the unit. Allen has spoken about how the eradication of entitlement has been key to building the 2026 team. While Clemson's defense hasn't quite been what it was under Brent Venables, the stepback on offense has been far worse. After three seasons of partially going outside the family for offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, Swinney had seen enough. There's a school of thought outside the program that Riley never had the best chance to succeed in the job -- being handcuffed as far as his offensive staffers were concerned. Chad Morris now returns to the fold to run the show on offense with a less-than-certain quarterback situation after Cade Klubnik was selected by the Jets in the fifth round. Clemson heads into the summer with deep question marks at offensive line as well, and the Tigers are bottom third of the country in returning production on offense heading into the 2026 season. Morris is in his third stint with Swinney and his second as offensive coordinator.

Swinney defiantly said if Clemson was "tired of winning, they can send me on the way," after a loss to Georgia Tech (itself a treatise on Clemson's slippage, as the Tigers had lost to the Jackets once since 2011). But the point is that Clemson had already come back to the pack in the rest of the ACC rather than being head and shoulders above.

Swinney has raged against the dying of the light plenty of times. He's defied portal usage but is now tacitly dipping the program's toe into it. Perhaps the portaled parts will lead Allen to success, but that remains to be seen. Rich Biasaccia's addition as special teams coach also adds a steady hand to the staff. The question isn't just if Clemson can bounce back after last season's disappointment; it's about what a failure to do so will actually mean. Eventually, even the best coaches in a program's history get passed by in spite of how many future pros they can continue to stockpile on the roster year-in and year-out.