What's wrong with Clemson? A few theories

When a college football team falls below its preseason expectations, there are levels in which they do so. 

There's the standard, "We thought this team was nationally elite, but turns out they're just pretty good." This is quite common, and seen most recently last season, when preseason No. 5 Alabama finished 9-4 and ranked 17th in the final AP poll. 

Then there's the "Nominal title contender that turns out to be just average" team. This is not as common, but happens from time to time. 2018 Wisconsin was the last team to begin in the AP top-5 and finish outside the rankings, but before them it happened to 2017 Florida State, 2013 Georgia, and 2012 USC. All of those teams still went to bowl games and finished above .500, though.

Rarer still is the preseason AP top-5 team that just flat out stinks. The last preseason AP top-5 to finish under .500 was 2010 Texas; the last before them was 2005 Tennessee, and the last before them was 2000 Alabama. That's three teams in 25 seasons heading into this one -- at five teams per season (duh), that's three in 125 total teams to begin the year in the AP top-5 only to lose more games than they win.

It's too soon to say where 2025 AP preseason No. 4 Clemson will end up, but we know where these Tigers -- presently 1-3 overall and 0-2 in ACC play -- will not do, and that's win a national championship. Don't take it from me, that comes straight from the mouth of the head coach. "We're not going to win the national championship this year, but that doesn't mean we can't win the season. Doesn't mean we can't finish well and doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the journey," Dabo Swinney said yesterday.

The question is why did this team, from whom so much is expected, miss the mark so badly. There are a number of theories floating around, and I would like to discuss them here.

Theory 1: Clemson, a place where "Best Is The Standard" was once the motto, got complacent

This tweet caught my eye.

Swinney would certainly push back by saying offensive coordinator Garrett Riley and defensive coordinator Tom Allen are outsiders who were hired for their accomplishments elsewhere, and that's undoubtedly correct. Neither had any connection to Dabo or to Clemson before their hire, but one wonders how much change each coordinator can possibly bring when so much around them remains stagnant. Allen is a new defensive coordinator, but the rest of Clemson's on-field assistants pre-date him, some by more than a decade. Likewise, Riley did not get to bring an on-field position coach with him, either. It's clear both Riley and Allen were hired to put their own spin on what Clemson was already doing, not to bring a fresh approach to their respective sides of the ball. 

A new chef may be able to serve a fresh dish, but when the ingredients are decided for him, how much different is it really going to taste?

It's also possible that Swinney allowed his players to get complacent. Dabo's reluctance to embrace the transfer portal hurt Clemson from a mathematical perspective -- to put it bluntly, the more players you sign, the more opportunities you have to be right, and your misses become less costly. A baseball team with 40 outs to play with each game is going to beat a team that only gets 27 outs nearly every time.

But it's also possible that the lack of transfers hurts Clemson in the weight room and in the locker room.

I thought CBS Sports analyst Bud Elliott made a great point here. "In the portal era, almost every team out there knows if you don't perform, if you don't work hard, you will get portaled over. We will bring somebody in -- not a freshman -- we will bring somebody in to beat you out immediately... How much does that impact accountability when, on all the other teams, if you're not doing your job, you're going to be losing your job?

The evidence for this theory can be found in Dabo's own words. He spoke for more than 50 minutes last week, and it's fair to say much of it was whining about being held to the standard he created.

"All we've done is win," Swinney said. "We've won this league eight out of the last 10 years. Is that not good? I'm just asking. Is that good? To win your league eight out of 10 years, to go to the playoffs seven out of 10 years, be in four national championships, win it twice. Yeah, we're a little down right now. Take your shots. I've got a long memory. We'll be all right. We'll bounce back."

Compare that to the Dabo of a decade ago.

None of this to say continuity and loyalty are bad things, but like everything else in life they're best enjoyed in moderation.

Theory 2: These guys were never that good in the first place

Let's revisit the 2024 ACC Championship. Clemson came into that game at 9-3 and underdogs to 11-1, 8th-ranked SMU. The Tigers got off to a fantastic start, leading 31-14 entering the fourth quarter. I don't know if the clock struck 12 on Cinderella, SMU was temporarily overwhelmed by the moment, or water eventually found its level, but either way the Ponies rallied, tying the game with 16 seconds left to play. Had that game gone to overtime, SMU likely wins, and a 9-4 Clemson is nowhere near the College Football Playoff. As we know, Adam Randall returned SMU's kickoff to the 45-yard line, Nolan Hauser booted a 56-yard field goal (a record for the ACC Championship, and the longest ever by a Clemson kicker away from Death Valley), and the Tigers won the game, the ACC, and the conference's automatic CFP berth.

In their CFP game, Clemson lost at No. 5 seed Texas, 38-24. After building a 7-0 lead, the Tigers fell behind 21-7, and from that point forward spent only two snaps within seven points of the Longhorns. Cade Klubnik played a great game (336 yards, three touchdowns), but the Tiger defense was gashed (292 yards, four touchdowns) by a Texas offense that struggled to run the ball on everyone else it played in December and January. All this to say: Clemson did not play particularly well in the CFP game that it snuck into.

And yet it seems winning the ACC and making the postseason tournament induced a mass psychosis on the college football public (myself included). 

Look at it this way: other than SMU, who's the last team Clemson beat that really impressed you? Other than SMU, the only FBS team Clemson beat that finished above .500 last season was Pitt, and they went 7-6. Clemson went 4-4 in ACC play in 2023 (though they did defeat a top-15 Notre Dame in non-conference), and their 2022 ACC championship squad closed the year by losing to South Carolina and Tennessee. 

Overall, Clemson is 1-5 in its last six against the FBS, and 3-6 in its last nine. Beginning with their meeting vs. LSU for the 2019 national championship, Clemson is 3-8 against the SEC. 

It's possible that Clemson began rotting from within once Trevor Lawrence left, and we're just now waking up to it.

Theory 3: There's divine intervention at play here

It cannot be overstated what a miracle it is that Clemson is in this place in the first place. A miracle was required for Dabo to simply keep his job upon landing the interim role in October 2008, and then another one to get from where they were in '08 to where they were a decade later. It's more commonplace now, but in that era, coaches either won national championships immediately or not at all. 

Before Swinney, the last coach to win his first national championship beyond his fourth year at his given school was Mack Brown in 2005, and the last before him was Philip Fulmer in 2008 (more on both of them below). It simply did not happen back then. 

A large reason for that was Nick Saban. Selfish Saban simply gobbled up all the national championships during his reign. He went 7-2 in title games across his career, beating the likes of Bob Stoops, Brown, Les Miles, Brian Kelly, Kirby Smart, and Ryan Day. His only losses were to Dabo. 

Perhaps Clemson is simply paying the mortgage on a deal with the devil, or the college football gods, or some other deity who ordained Hunter Renfrow to catch that ball to win the 2016 title. 

Before you rule that out, Swinney himself believes there's a lesson to be learned in all this struggle. "This is not what we expected, but I don't think it caught God by surprise," he said Monday.

So while Clemson will not play for the 2025 national title, history says it matters where this team finishes. 

Let's review the three AP top-5 starters to finish below .500 this century. 

2000 Alabama was coached by Mike DuBose, whose 3-8 record was his last at his alma mater, and his last coaching football above the Division III level. Not very analogous to the situation at hand.

The other two are. 2005 Tennessee was coached by Fulmer, and 2010 Texas by Brown. Both are in the Hall of Fame, but they earned their spots for what happened before those respective seasons, and in spite of what happened after. Fulmer coached at Tennessee another three seasons after '05, and Brown coached another three seasons at Texas after '10. Both men eventually built good teams after their downfalls, but neither built a great one. None of the combined six seasons among the two coaches resulted in a conference title, a BCS bowl berth (the equivalent to a CFP bid today), or an AP top-10 finish. 

Dabo has made it clear he's not leaving on his own volition, and it's doubtful Clemson has the $60 million necessary to buy him out. These two are going to remain married until they're not. And that means upcoming games against the likes of North Carolina, Boston College and SMU won't have any affect on the 2025 title race, they could prove to be crucial for the near-term future of Clemson football.