Dabo Swinney is back under fire after Clemson lays another egg vs. real competition

Things are not going well in Clemson right now. After getting on quite the roll following their blowout neutral-site defeat to regional rival Georgia in Atlanta, Clemson back up its hot start in ACC play with a complete dud of a performance at home vs. Louisville. This loss will knock the former No. 11 team in the nation back several spots heading into the first College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday.

Losing at home to Louisville 33-21 drops Clemson to 6-2 on the year and 5-1 in ACC play. While Pittsburgh did get its brains beat in by SMU on Saturday night, the Tigers still have to play the 7-1 Panthers in what will be a playoff elimination game for both teams. Factor in that SMU has not lost a conference game and Miami has not lost a game period may have Clemson on the outside looking in.

Even more concerning, guess who Clemson finishes the season with? South Carolina may not have the best record, but Shane Beamer's team is playing so incredibly hard for him. The Gamecocks just throttled a top-10 team in Texas A&M at home on Saturday night. I don't think anyone in their right mind is going to want to face South Carolina the rest of the way. This all falls back on Dabo Swinney...

If he treated the transfer portal with the respect it deserves, maybe Clemson would not be so bland?

Dabo Swinney is under fire after Clemson loses another game this season

As I was trying to understand why Clemson was struggling with Louisville so much on Saturday, I came to this harsh realization. Under Swinney's watch, Clemson has gone from being a perennial power in recruitment into being a complete afterthought. This is because they are not looking at getting better in multiple ways. If you are not in on Clemson out of high school, you never will be.

Yes, there are talented players on offense like Cade Klubnik at quarterback and Phil Maffa at running back, but where are the studs outside the numbers? Garrett Riley can only do so much when trying to scheme of offensive plays, especially when he is going up against a great head coach in Jeff Brohm on the outside. It also goes to show that Wes Goodwin could use a few more bodies on defense, too.

I just feel that when I am watching Clemson of late, they have little margin for error on both sides of the ball because they lack the necessary high-end depth of other college football contenders. Again, you have to be welcoming to all sorts of prospective players, no matter what stage of their life they are at. If you attract the same type of players, you are probably going to get the same kind of results.

Over the course of the last several seasons, Clemson has lost its ability to kick it into a higher gear.