Dabo Swinney’s Clemson Tigers entered the season with their highest preseason ranking — fourth — since 2022. With quarterback Cade Klubnik returning after a promising junior season and surrounded by a strong receiving corps and a defense laden with NFL talent, the Tigers were viewed as a legitimate title contender and, at the very least, a shoo-in College Football Playoff team.
Then the season started. The Tigers lost to LSU 17-10 in their opener, trailed Troy 16-0 before rallying for a 27-16 win and then lost to Georgia Tech this past weekend 24-21. It’s Clemson’s first 1-2 start since 2014.
But when asked Tuesday if he’s feeling the criticism, Swinney responded “no” and launched into an answer that spanned over eight minutes.
“Perspective is important,” Swinney said as part of his answer. “If they want me gone, they’re tired of winning, they can send me on the way, because that’s all we’ve done is win. So if they’re tired of winning … we’ve won this league eight out of the last 10 years. Is that not good? I’m just asking, ‘Is that good?’ I don’t know if that’s good or not, to win your league eight out of 10 years, to go to the playoff seven out of 10 years, to be in four national championships, win it twice.
“Yeah, we a little down right now. Take your shots. But I got a long memory in case y’all don’t know. We’ll be all right. We’ll bounce back. This is a program built to last, always has been, always will be. And if you don’t believe in us because we’ve lost two games down to the last straight, you didn’t believe in us anyway. So it don’t matter.”
The rebuttal, of course, would be that Clemson is out of the AP Poll entirely and is clearly coming up short of where it was expected to be, with the offensive line a major issue.
Loss to Georgia Tech confirms harsh new reality for Clemson — nobody fears the Tigers anymore
Chip Patterson
The Tigers indeed competed in the College Football Playoff in seven of the last 10 years, as Swinney said, but they also missed it in three of the past four years and only made it last year as the No. 12 seed in the first year of the 12-team playoff. It’s a far cry from the 2015-20 run, when the Tigers made the four-team CFP every year, won two titles and played in two more.
Swinney’s job is safe considering his massive buyout, and he made it clear if Clemson were to somehow move on, he wouldn’t just ride off into the sunset.
“Hey, listen, if Clemson’s tired of winning, they can send me on my way, but I’m going somewhere else to go somewhere else and coach,” Swinney said. “I ain’t going to the beach. Hell, I’m 55. I got a long way to go. Y’all going to have to deal with me for a while. I got a long way to go. I’m just getting going. I’m just now good enough to be a head coach. I’m just now figuring it out. So we’ll be around a while. Let’s hang in there.”
Swinney hopes his team figures it out, too. The Tigers will try to get back in the win column Saturday when they face Syracuse. Clemson is 10-1 vs. Syracuse since the Orange joined the ACC in 2013.
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