SC Local Media Going After clemson's Dabo About Misleading Statements

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There is a fine line between protecting your players and deliberately misleading people and Clemson and Coach Dabo Swinney appear to be sliding right up to that line, if not crossing it. When a school issues a press release about a player’s departure from the program you expect it to be vague, to use terms like “violation of team rules” or “conduct detrimental to the team,” but you do not expect to get an explanation that isn’t legitimate.

Clemson issued a press release on June 25th indicating Isaiah Battle planned to enter the NFL supplemental draft, citing family reasons.

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It didn’t take long for TheClemsonInsider to report the real issue, a marijuana citation that was the final strike for Battle. Battle didn’t just wake up one day and realize that he had a baby on the way and decide that needed to leave Clemson, he had not choice because he had been kicked off the team. According to the TCI report, Battle had “no money in the bank” with Swinney.

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Which brings us to D.J. Reader. Like Battle, it is a complete headscratcher as to why a senior starter, who was one of Clemson’s representatives at the ACC Football Kickoff last month, suddenly decided to leave the football team. According to Swinney Reader decided to “step away from football for a while” because of “some personal issues he has to deal with.” The release is eerily similar to the Battle release in June. Having two of key starters leave a team for personal reasons shortly before the start of the season is extraordinarily unheard of. And while the explanation given in Reader’s case very well may be legitimate, it is being called into question because of the lack of accuracy from the school issued release involving Battle.

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