Deion, Dabo Prove College Football Is All About Balance

The universe is all about balance, as the great philosopher Thanos once opined.

It's true when it comes to life, as it is with college football, and no two polar opposites exemplify that idiom better than Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney and Colorado head coach Deion Sanders.

Granted, Swinney and Sanders embody what not to do as college football coaches on either end of the roster-building spectrum, but a lot can be gleaned from each of them.

We will start with Deion, as I have already touched on his failings earlier today.

Sanders is in year three at Colorado, and it's clear that without the superstar tandem of all-purpose standout Travis Hunter and gunslinger son Shedeur Sanders, he doesn't have the same magic he did last season.

Coach Prime built his roster almost entirely through the transfer portal, eschewing traditional high school recruiting in favor of college football's version of free agency.

That lack of stability has come back to bite Sanders and the Buffs, proving they don't have the depth numbers to compete in the upper echelon of college football.

Dabo Swinney represents the opposite extreme, focusing solely on recruiting and almost completely forgoing the transfer portal.

For equal and opposite reasons, it hasn't worked out for Clemson either.

Without having transfers to plug holes on your roster from a missed evaluation, you leave your team hamstrung during years when you would normally be "a player or two away."

There isn't a right or wrong way to run a college football program, but I keep coming back to our Sesame Street word of the day:

Balance.

Deion and Dabo proved to us that recruiting and the transfer portal are the yin and yang of roster construction: it takes a steady stream of both to build a champion.

I am of the school of thought that says high school recruiting is far more important to building a consistent and stable winner, but that doesn't mean the transfer portal doesn't play an integral role in it as well.

This is a concept that coaches like Dabo and Deion are failing to grasp, and it might be costing their respective programs the success that is currently eluding them.

Some high-end depth couldn't hurt Colorado, and a few superstar transfers certainly would be welcome in Clemson.

We will see if either of these two coaches will have the runway or willingness to adapt, or if their stubbornness will end up sinking them.

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on the latter.