With the newly announced 24-team College Football Playoff, the sport is evolving faster than ever, and programs, Clemson included, have to keep pace.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, head coach Dabo Swinney explained that the front office and personnel side will need to change with the sport, suggesting a more centralized structure than Clemson's current one, but not one that includes an external general manager running the roster.

"No, I'm going to make the roster decisions as the head coach," he said. "I mean, I don't make them all by myself; we collectively [do]. We're not going to hire somebody to come in and say, 'This is your roster.'"

His reasoning comes down to how College Football differs from the next level.

Without a draft, he said, building a team is a recruiting job, and that starts with the coaches themselves. He added that money alone doesn't settle things nowadays, given that the revenue-sharing era has put dollars in everyone's pockets.

"You've got to recruit," he continued. "You don't get to draft. And I think, who the head coach is, who's coaching, who's running meetings, who are the position coaches; all that stuff matters in College Football. You can't just pick who you want. Everybody's got money, you know, you've got to recruit. So, that part won't change."

However, that doesn't mean Swinney thinks Clemson's current setup is enough as is.

In his view, the growth needs to happen on the business side of the program, not in the people who make the roster decisions. He started by noting how much the workload has grown in recent years, as agents and contracts have become a normal part of the job.

"Well, I think probably the biggest thing there is that it's probably gonna go from 20 to 40 or whatever. I just think you got to be—it's all new, everybody's got agents, everybody's got contracts," Swinney stated.

That high increase in volume is landing on a very small group, though. 

Nearly all of the work runs through deputy athletic director Amanda Gray Richardson. While Swinney says she's done a great job, the amount of money involved means the office has to grow, especially since it doesn't solely pertain to Clemson Football.

"So, I think Graham [Neff]'s got—I mean, right now everything kind of goes to Amanda. We got like a one-person central office, and I know that's something from Graham's standpoint that we've got to—because it's every sport. It ain't just football," Swinney said. "So I think kind of building out a central office with Amanda, she does a great job, but she's one person, you know, and kind of building that out because there is a lot of money, and being able to do a good job managing that, and you know, market trends, analytics."

Clemson has already been moving in that direction, as Neff announced in November 2024 that the school was establishing a centralized "front office" to oversee contract details, compliance and allocation strategy. 

But Swinney said the biggest change he'd like to see doesn't have anything to do with staffing; it's about clarity across the sport.

"Because right now if I could say one thing I wish we could change, I would say we need transparency, you know, because there's none," he said bluntly. "There's just a bunch of lying. There's no transparency. And so transparency would create some markets and some rules and some order, which we have none of that. But I would say that's probably a definite area."

From a football standpoint, Swinney credited Senior Director of Player Personnel, Evaluation & Scouting Kevin Kelly for the personnel structure he has built, while noting that Kelly and general manager Jordan Sorrells still need more hands.

"And, I mean, we've evolved 20 times. Bringing in Kevin Kelly was amazing for us, just from a football standpoint, and how he's kind of set up our personnel stuff," Swinney commented. "He's been awesome, and getting better. And I'd say we probably still need a couple of spots there just helping him a little. He and Jordan in there."

Swinney then closed by listing what a larger central office would handle and said that every program will have to make the same investment.

"But, certainly from a central office standpoint, that's a lot of money, and just making sure we can support, you know, all the sports the right way," he finished. "Because there's contracts, and there's redlines on contracts, there's one-year deals, two-year deals. There's what are the trends, what's real, what's not. Dealing with agents, there's a lot of stuff involved. So, I think that's definitely an area everybody's got to invest in."

For now, though, we'll have to wait and see what happens. Swinney and the Tigers will be back in action in Death Valley on Saturday, facing off against Georgia Tech. Kickoff is set for 12:30 p.m., and the game will be broadcast on The CW Network.