After a draft exodus and a crushing fall from the top five, Dabo Swinney faces a steep climb to restore the Tigers' prestige with a depleted roster.
On Aug. 30, the Clemson Tigers entered their Week 1 contest against No. 9 LSU with a No. 4 ranking.
The ranking seemed fair at the time, given the return of quarterback Cade Klubnik, who led the Tigers to the College Football Playoff in 2024. In retrospect of the 2026 NFL Draft, when nine Clemson players went in the first five rounds, the early ranking seemed like a fair prediction.
However, Clemson lost its ranking after losing 24-21 to Georgia Tech in Week 3. The next weekend, Syracuse beat the Tigers 34-21, which crushed any hopes that head coach Dabo Swinney would engineer a turnaround that would put the team in the CFP conversation.
Swinney hopes the 2026 team will perform better after making coaching changes, including bringing back offensive coordinator Chad Morris.
Chip Patterson of CBS Sports ranked Clemson at No. 26 for the upcoming season, and named the program one of the offseason's biggest movers.
"The Tigers might not be dealing with a coaching change, but there seems to be an assumption that Dabo Swinney's crew will have some addition by subtraction after losing Garrett Riley as offensive coordinator and Cade Klubnik as the team's starting quarterback," he wrote.
"The NFL Draft talent exodus was notable, but after our voters were harsh to a team that fell way short of preseason expectations, this top-30 ranking points to a return to form for a group that will be comparatively lacking in proven experience."
Swinney believes the lessons from last year can help the Tigers play better this fall.
"Sometimes you can do everything right and it doesn't go your way," Swinney said on Josh Pate's show last week. "That's life too. And I think as a person of faith, like you know, if everything did go our way all the time and we never lost and we never had any adversity, we'd have no reason to depend on God, all right.
"But adversity is a part of life. It's a part of learning. Failure is a part of success; it just is. And last year in life, in our world, we didn't get it done, and we did; we definitely underachieved, and that's my responsibility. "
The expectations will still be high for Swinney and Clemson, though the talent on the offensive roster is questionable at this point.
The defense should keep them in games, but Christopher Vizzina will need to move the ball, and the Tigers will have to have some sort of running game to make a run at Miami for the ACC title.