What Dabo Swinney said about Clemson dismissing Marquise Henderson from team
Clemson football’s decision to dismiss true freshman athlete and in-state recruit Marquise Henderson from the program on June 19 drew attention.
As did the news, first reported by The State on Monday, that Henderson had allegedly been involved in a verbal altercation with teammates three days before his dismissal. That alleged incident led to police responding to the football facilities.
Coach Dabo Swinney addressed his decision to dismiss Henderson from the program for the first time on Tuesday during Clemson’s annual on-campus media day.
“Yeah, just didn’t work out,” Swinney said of Henderson. “I mean, there’s a standard here. It didn’t work out. Gave him an opportunity. Hate it, but wish him all the best.”
Henderson enrolled at Clemson in January after a record-setting career at nearby Belton-Honea Path High School. A top 200 national recruit, Henderson signed with Clemson as an athlete and was expected to play at wide receiver.
But he was injured early in spring practice, practiced minimally, missed the April 5 spring game and was ultimately part of the team for just five months before Clemson announced on June 19 it had made the decision to dismiss him from the program.
“We wish him the best as he moves forward,” a team spokesman said at the time.
Records reveal Henderson locker room incident
Henderson was involved in a locker room incident three days before Clemson dismissed him, a police report obtained by The State via public records request showed.
The severity of the altercation varied based on eyewitness accounts. One person who was identified in the police report as a student alleged that Henderson threatened to harm multiple teammates and showed them a picture of a gun during the incident.
This followed an argument that stemmed from one of those teammate calling out Henderson for missing team workouts, according to the police report.
Henderson is the first Clemson player to be dismissed from the program since linebacker TJ Dudley in summer 2023. Dudley was dismissed for an undisclosed violation of team rules and is now starting at linebacker for Ole Miss.
Henderson, 18, entered the transfer portal after being dismissed from Clemson and committed to Liberty less than a week later. But he has removed references to Liberty from his social media pages and reportedly won’t be playing there in 2025.
This story was originally published July 15, 2025 at 2:33 PM.
