Dabo Swinney's Assistants Make Bank and He's Willing to Pay Everyone But His Players

Clemson has made Dabo Swinney one of the highest-paid coaches in college football after losing just one game in the last two seasons, and his top assistants are also getting a hefty pay raise.

The Tigers’ 10 assistant coaches will earn just over $8 million collectively in 2020-21, with the highest-paid member being defensive coordinator Brent Venables, who is $100,000 behind Auburn defensive boss Chris Steele for the title of highest-paid assistant coach in the country at $2.4 million annually.

Offensive coordinator Tony Elliott, who now has the full-time gig after Jeff Scott left to take the head coaching job at USF, will earn a substantial pay bump from $1 million to $1.6 million.

That's all well and good, as those coaches are earning what the market says they're worth. However, what makes this all look incredibly sketchy for Swinney is the fact that he is one of the leading voices in the "don't pay the players" movement while helping his staff get rich along the way.

Swinney wants his players to be unable to generate even a penny for their athletic labors, though he's more than happy to take a nine-figure salary while helping himself and his assistants preside over it. If you can't see the hypocrisy in that, you've been drinking too much of the Clemson Kool-Aid.