The Clemson Tigers are 1-3 for the first time since 2004, which also happens to be four years before Dabo Swinney took over the helm of the program from Tommy Bowden. Saturday's stunning (and not particularly close) loss at home to Syracuse secured that record for Clemson. And for a team that started the season ranked No. 4 in the preseason AP Top 25, no one saw this coming for the Tigers, not even the most ardent haters. But now that this early-season collapse has begun to transpire, it's hard not to notice that ACC favorites have now bottomed out in back-to-back seasons.
That, of course, was what happened to the Florida State Seminoles in the 2024 campaign. Mike Norvell's team was coming off of a 12-0 regular season and ACC championship the year prior, which earned them a Top 10 preseason ranking, which immediately fell by the wayside in Dublin with a loss to, ironically, Georgia Tech, the team that handed Clemson its second loss of the season. But that loss was, unfortunately, just the beginning for the Noles, who went on to endure a cataclysmically bad 2-10 campaign.
In all likelihood, Clemson isn't heading toward a two-win season, even if the wheels are falling off. Even if you look back to the last Tigers team to start 1-3 with a lesser coach than Swinney manning the sidelines with Bowden, that team still managed to go 6-5 on the year.
And yet, even if Clemson ends up in a bowl game, don't be fooled by thinking they avoided the same fate as Florida State. In fact, what Swinney and the Tigers have set up in this situation is actually worse than what happened with the Seminoles in the 2024 campaign.
Clemson's dramatic collapse is worse than 2024 Florida State
While Florida State was also a preseason Top 10 team, it's crucial to note the differences between how that team was perceived versus how Clemson was coming into this year. The Seminoles were propped up based on the build that Norvell had done, unfound expectations for D.J. Uiagalelei, and the presumed return of FSU to consistent national prominence.
Obviously, none of that came even close to fruition in what became a two-win season. At the same time, the preseason belief in Florida State was in unproven pieces fitting into the same puzzle. With Clemson, that narrative was flipped entirely.
Myself included, anyone calling Clemson a preseason College Football Playoff lock or, at minimum, the clear favorite in the ACC was doing so based on the continuity with the Tigers. Cade Klubnik is back with another year under Garrett Riley to his credit. The defense, littered with projected first-round pick, was back in full force. And this was supposed to be the best group of wide receivers we've seen in some time for the Tigers. It was all about the timing being right for this group to realize national championship-level expectations.
That inherently and simply is what makes this worse for Clemson than it was for Florida State. The Seminoles came into last season trying to replace a roster that lost almost every key starter from their magical group in the 2023 campaign, and they fell on their face. Clemson returned their key starters and based expectations on it, and are currently falling on their faces all the same.
Dabo Swinney isn't going to get fired, but he has to change his ways
In the end, this really comes down to Dabo Swinney's stubbornness to change. His reluctance — or, perhaps, outright defiance — to use the transfer portal has been a fun punchline for college football fans. However, in the modern era of the sport, we're seeing that's no longer viable for a program like Clemson that has expectations to be perennially in the national title mix.
Even if you just look at the two unranked teams that have upended Clemson in the past two weeks, that's clear. Haynes King didn't start his college career at Georgia Tech. Steve Angeli and Rickie Collins, who replaced Angeli after an injury, weren't at Syracuse a year ago. And that's just at quarterback for these two teams. More and more often, we're seeing programs elevate, even if only for a season, because they hit home runs in the transfer portal.
But in terms of other programs on the same level as Clemson, it's still a similar song that's being sung in regard to the portal, but one that Swinney and the Tigers have refused to utilize. When you look at contenders like Georgia, like Texas, like Ohio State, like Oregon, and so on and so forth, they certainly go at it from the same starting point as Clemson — but they aren't only using that to try and capture a title.
The top programs in the sport, instead, have become masters of using the portal to strengthen weaknesses. If there's a need on the offensive line, as there certainly is for the Tigers, other coaches go into the portal aggressively and shore that area up. That applies across position groups as well.
Is this all going to cost Swinney his job? Absolutely not, at least not yet. What he's done for Clemson over nearly the past two decades has earned him grace within the program. At the same time, if he doesn't change his ways when it comes to roster building, specifically with the portal, that grace is going to run out, because the collapses and disappointments that we're seeing with this current group aren't going to subside after one year.