Petty and amateurish.

He cited 3 examples from MLB teams and 1 example from an NFL team. If he's going to claim "decades of precedent" then he should have provided at least one example of a college team that provided a ring to a player who dropped out of school during the season. Is there a precedent for this? I don't know.

When he writes "Swinney purposefully kept a ring from Bryant" that implies that Bryant was singled out. Again, what is the precedent for players who dropped out of school before the season ended, both at Clemson and at other schools? If the precedent is that other players in that situation did not get rings either, then what Swinney did was normal and to give Bryant a ring would have been purposefully generous. I have no idea what the precedent is, and the writer did nothing to illuminate it.

He later states "Bryant — who had graduated from college and therefore could sit out the rest of the season and have one more year of eligibility in 2019 for another team — left the team and transferred to Missouri.... If Bryant wanted to showcase his skills for the NFL, he had to leave Clemson.... For this, Swinney has banished him. Maybe if he’d hung around and cleaned the jocks..." Everybody understands Bryant's incentive to transfer AFTER the season ended, but the key difference is that Bryant transferred BEFORE the season ended. The writer fails to explain why sticking around as a 2nd stringer (or cleaning jocks, as he put it) for the remainder of the 2018 season would have hindered Bryant's ability to transfer to Missouri, and/or his NFL goals.

Of course, if you read the whole article, it becomes clear that the writer's main gripe is the NCAA's rules on amateurism. Fair enough.

giving Bryant a ring. Only players eligible for the championship game may receive a championship ring from the nschool. If true, there was nothing Swinney could do. Also, if true, it makes the author look a bit careless.

I find that hard to believe, especially considering cheerleaders can get rings.

I usually like Leitch's stuff but I missed some errors in this one.

And those pro examples are trades--not a player quitting on his team, whatever the justifiable reasons for it.

But he probably couldn't have stuck around as a second stringer because, assuming Lawrence never lost the job, Kelly would be at risk of playing in an additional game and burning his final year of eligibility. I doubt Dabo would permit Kelly to remain on the scout team while refusing to play in a game. That would be a major team distraction.

The caveat to that is I don't know if the NCAA made the ability to redshirt after playing no more than four games retroactive. He only played 4 games as a sophomore, so it's possible that preserved a fifth year regardless of his 2018 participation.

That definitely justifies Bryant quitting the team. That's a really important detail that the writer should have explained. However, quitting the team doesn't mean that he had to immediately drop out of school (I assume that's what happened, correct me if I'm mistaken). He could have continued his graduate school classes through the end of the semester, and then transferred after the season ended. Had he stayed enrolled as a student through the end of the season, I think he'd be deserving of a ring and I suspect that he would have received one.

The answer to the caveat in your last question is that no, the 4-game redshirt rule is not retroactive. It's really surpising to me that Bryant didn't redshirt during either his freshman or sophomore year when DeShawn Watson was the starter. To me, that's where Dabo is open to significant criticism. There was no need to put Bryant in for mop-up duty in those blowouts. It was a disservice to Bryant and put his own team at a disadvantage.

Contrasting this to Brian Kelly's treatment of Brandon Wimbush, you may recall that he used Wimbush for mop-up duty during 2015 after Malik Zaire went down, but in 2016 Kelly intentionally kept Wimbush out of those games in order to preserve his 5th year option. Had BK treated Wimbush the same way that Dabo treated Bryant, then it's likely that Wimbush would have left the team after he lost the starting position and Jurkovec would have been the starter for the FSU game. BK's preservation of Wimbush's 5th year option during 2016 wound up being in the best interests of both Wimbush and the ND team, so I think he deserves credit for that.

and I doubt Swinney cares very much whether or not Bryant stayed a student at Clemson - he's punishing him for leaving the team. If players that only participate on the practice squad get a ring why shouldn't a player that actually started games (and guided Clemson to a playoff berth the year prior) get a ring?

This is a vindictive measure for a player that helped the team. It's also asking a lot to tell a player at a football-centric school to hang around and take classes after quitting the team. I imagine the social implications would be significant.

Finally, Swinney's comments about paying athletes and "entitlement" are enough for me.

some precedent for a player who quit a team mid-season and dropped out of school to receive an award postseason. Is that a thing? If a high school football player drops out of school in the middle of the season, would the coach bring him back to campus for the postseason banquet and give him a championship ring? You tell me.

You're probably right that it may not have been practical for Bryant to attend classes after quitting the team, due to his notoriety. But if a lower level player tapped out mid-season (perhaps to focus on his studies, or just couldn't handle the physical toll) but still remained a member of the student body then I would consider him to be eligible for postseason awards such as a championship ring. That's just my own opinion about where I would draw the line, I probably shouldn't have speculated about what Dabo would do in that situation.

They accepted their role to help the team win a championship. Kelly has the swag from the years he played, including a 2016 championship ring. He doesn't have the swag from the year he quit. I don't see the controversy. I certainly wouldn't expect to get a ring in those circumstances.

Should have known it was headed there, I stopped reading at Swinney is a racist crap.