{"id":147473,"date":"2026-02-07T20:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/147473\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T20:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:42:18","slug":"the-clemson-insider-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/147473\/","title":{"rendered":"The Clemson Insider"},"content":{"rendered":"

After signing three players from the NCAA transfer portal last offseason, Clemson added 10 players via the portal in the 2026 cycle.<\/p>\n

However, the Tigers still didn\u2019t do enough during the transfer portal window, according to this national out.<\/p>\n

Manny Navarro of The Athletic<\/a> tabbed Clemson as one team that \u201cdidn\u2019t really do enough\u201d in the portal:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t fault Dabo Swinney for what happened with linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who bolted for Ole Miss in the 11th hour. But the Tigers needed to bring in some real reinforcements after a disappointing 7-6 season and didn\u2019t really do enough in my eyes. Clemson replaced two starting safeties who left via the portal \u2014 Ricardo Jones (Vanderbilt) and Khalil Barnes (Georgia) \u2014 with two guys from Group of 6 programs in Jerome Carter (Old Dominion) and Corey Myrick (Southern Miss). Then, Swinney addressed the losses on the defensive line to the NFL Draft with four players who combined to make two starts last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those losses on offense? The Tigers signed one running back via the portal. Maybe Clemson has some amazing recent high school players just waiting to blow up, but it feels like even keeping Ferrelli wouldn\u2019t have been enough to alter Clemson\u2019s downward trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Navarro alluded to, there wasn\u2019t much added on the offensive side of the ball via the transfer portal. However, when Keith Adams Jr. decided to transfer out, that did open up a spot at running back, and Swinney filled it with SMU transfer Chris Johnson Jr. \u2014 arguably the fastest back in the country.<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Tigers picked up nine portal commitments on the defensive side of the ball, including five defensive linemen (London Merritt from Colorado; Markus Strong from Oklahoma; Kourtney Kelly from West Georgia; Andy Burburija from Nebraska; CJ Wesley from Howard) and four defensive backs (Donovan Starr from Auburn; Elliot Washington II from Penn State; Carter from Old Dominion; Myrick from Southern Miss).<\/p>\n

Clemson was also recently pegged by CBS Sports<\/a> as one loser of the 2026 portal window.<\/p>\n

\"\"Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney reacts after a flag was thrown against Florida State during the fourth quarter on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025 at Memorial Stadium in Clemson. (Bart Boatwright\/The Clemson Insider)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After signing three players from the NCAA transfer portal last offseason, Clemson added 10 players via the portal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[28050,28054,28052,28051,232,234,233,28053,2486],"class_list":{"0":"post-147473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-clemson-insider-podcast","9":"tag-gymnastics","10":"tag-hero","11":"tag-noonan","12":"tag-tallahassee","13":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","14":"tag-tallahassee-news","15":"tag-track-and-field","16":"tag-wednesday"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}