Can Clemson return to elite status?

Clemson is 4-7 in major out of conference games since 2019.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Tue Jan 03 12:34:42 GMT-04:00 2023

A new year beckons, and the old year leaves plenty to be thankful for and plenty of questions.

The hallways outside of Clemson locker rooms have seen mostly smiling faces and celebratory nods at bowl and playoff games and big-time out-of-conference games over the last decade-plus. Clemson has enjoyed a run of success that is unequaled by anyone else except Alabama, and those facts are indisputable.

The Tigers finished 11-3 this season, won the ACC Championship, and earned a berth in the Orange Bowl. Most programs would sell their souls to have one season like that. Heck, a similar season would be the best that your rival has ever had, right?

So, why does it feel like it does?

There were a lot of grim faces outside the locker room this time. These games, these types of out of conference games, are the kind of games that Clemson is used to winning. But the big three out-of-conference games this season saw the Tigers go 0-3 and saw them outscored 97-58. The one game that wasn’t a double-digit loss was a head-scratching loss to South Carolina that some see as a coaching failure rather than just getting beat.

Clemson was 2-1 in similar games in 2021, losing to Georgia and beating South Carolina and Iowa State. However, no one will say that either the Cyclones or Gamecocks were similar in talent. Back in 2020, the Tigers lost on the road at Notre Dame, beat Notre Dame in the ACC Championship, and were spanked by Ohio State in the College Football Playoff. Go back to 2019 and Clemson edged out Ohio State in a slugfest and then was trounced by a bunch of NFL players in the loss to LSU. That adds up to a 4-7 record against major out-of-conference foes since the start of the CFP in 2019.

During that unbelievable six-season span from 2015-2020, Clemson was 16-2 in similar contests, with both losses coming to Alabama. Clemson lost just six games over that same span, but now has seven losses in the last three seasons to out-of-conference foes.

Yes, Clemson has been incredibly consistent. Yes, this is college football and things change, almost daily. And yes, NIL and the transfer portal have changed the entire landscape of the game. Change is expected, and like we have heard thousands of times, the other teams have scholarship players and want to win, too. Even Alabama isn’t immune, with four losses the last two seasons, but the Crimson Tide have just 10 losses overall since the start of the 2015 season.

And if you watched the College Football Playoff semifinal between Georgia and Ohio State, it was abundantly clear that both teams have playmakers all over the field, especially on offense. That also showed the gap – however big or small you think it is – between Clemson and those two programs at this point and time.

That’s why I think that Clemson is at a bit of a crossroads. Is winning the ACC enough, or do you want to go compete with Georgia and Ohio State and be one of the top four teams? (Yes, I know the Playoff is expanding, but let’s be honest, there aren’t but a few teams each year that can win it). Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has said that he wants to be in the conversation, but that conversation hasn’t been on Clemson in a few years.

Clemson was shellacked by LSU in the title game in 2019, then shellacked again by Ohio State the next season. Since then, it’s been a battle with injuries and attrition on both the roster and in the coaching ranks.

I thought Ryan Kantor did a nice job of detailing the fact that changes need to be made offensively – there needs to an identity again – but there are other changes within the program that need to be made. This is where we see the mindset of Swinney – he hasn’t hesitated to make changes in the past, and he has to see that Clemson doesn't have the elite talent across the board it once had. As one friend texted me after the Orange Bowl, “We’re good. We’re just not REAL good.” Will this recruiting class provide an infusion of talent? You bet. Will it be enough? That remains to be seen.

Can Clemson make it back to “real good?” The next few weeks will tell us a lot.