Clemson Tigers legend Terry Kinard took to Facebook on Tuesday to announce that his son, freshman Clemson safety Jaden Kinard, intends to enter the transfer portal. In this statement, he also made some serious accusations about the treatment of his son by Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney.
It makes sense that Jaden Kinard is entering the transfer portal. He was used sparingly in his lone season at Clemson in 2023. But Terry Kinard is now indicating that there is more to this story that involves Dabo Swinney.
According to Kinard, Swinney “belittled, insulted, and called Jaden Kinard names” in his final two practices with the team.
In those practices, Swinney allegedly caught the attention of other Clemson players during this incident, who were also reportedly puzzled by the verbal attack.
In a lengthy and detailed Facebook post, former Clemson safety and College Football Hall of Famer Terry Kinard details how his son, Jaden Kinard (a safety on the Clemson team set to transfer) was targeted by coach Dabo Swinney.
[H/T @iamtimfrisby89] pic.twitter.com/SkraXFz0DW
— The Comeback (@thecomeback) December 20, 2023
It’s an extremely detailed accusation from Terry Kinard, who added in the Facebook post that he believes the reasoning for this is that Swinney took his frustrations about departing players out on his son.
If this report is indeed true and Swinney did indeed berate Jaden Kinard, then it is obviously a horrible look for both Swinney and Clemson’s football program as a whole.
However, there are some conflicting reports on the legitimacy of these allegations.
Clemson beat writer David Hood commented on this accusation on a message board on TigerNet.com, stating that numerous people at these alleged practices did not see any kind of verbal attacks from Sweeney towards Kinard.
— WolfgangJT (@WolfgangJT78) December 20, 2023
At this point, this situation is clearly lacking any kind of substantial evidence against Swinney. So it remains to be seen if anything ever comes from this.
Regardless, it is certainly interesting to see someone like Terry Kinard, a College Football Hall of Famer for his playing at Clemson, publicly calling out Dabo Swinney like this.
