No, Clemson’s success didn’t come ‘out of nowhere’

Those outside of the Clemson football program tend to think that the Tigers’ success just came from nothing, but that’s just not the truth.

How many times have you heard someone from outside the area say that ‘Clemson’s success came out of nowhere?’

For some reason, opposing fans like to believe that the Tigers were an absolute wonder of a program who suddenly went from barely making a bowl game to becoming a CFB Playoff contender overnight. This is especially prominent among fans of ‘bluebloods’ like Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, USC and Notre Dame who are typically near the top of the College Football landscape.

The idea behind this thought is an attempt to discredit Clemson. How could a program go from have nearly no national relevancy to the king of College Football? The only logical answer, according to the fans outside of the program, is foul play.

The problem with this logic, though, is the fact that Clemson’s rise to dominance didn’t happen overnight.

The Tigers aren’t Ole Miss. They didn’t just go from winning six games a year to all of a sudden being ranked No. 1 in the nation. That’s not how it happened. As a matter of fact, it was far from that.

Dabo Swinney took over a faltering Clemson football program and barely earned the head coaching job. The next season, he was able to coach a Tiger team- led by CJ Spiller- to an ACC Atlantic Division Championship, but that was as far as the Tigers got.

The next season would be filled with questioning Swinney as Clemson went just 6-7, capping the year off with a loss to USF in the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte. Swinney subsequently made some staff changes and began to slowly recruit a step higher than before (let’s not forget that Clemson was already recruiting at top-25 level with Tommy Bowden). He brought in Chad Morris and the Tigers revamped that offensive scheme.

With Tajh Boyd at quarterback, Clemson won 10 games and an ACC Championship, but the Tigers found out they were still a far way off from being national contenders when they were beaten 70-33 in the Orange Bowl by West Virginia. That blowout loss would prompt Dabo Swinney to fire Kevin Steele and bring in a program-changing hire at defensive coordinator: Brent Venables.

In 2012 and 2013, the Tigers continued to build and came away with big bowl wins over LSU and Ohio State in that time frame. However, they weren’t able to get over the hump of beating Florida State or in-state rival South Carolina.

By 2014, Clemson had lost to the Gamecocks five-straight times. In steps another program-changing addition: QB Deshaun Watson. Watson took over the starting job and helped raise the prominence of the program in just his freshman season. He led the Tigers to a victory over the Gamecocks with a torn ACL and Clemson finished off the 2014 season with a win over national powerhouse Oklahoma in the Russell Athletic Bowl.

Finally, with Deshaun Watson at the helm and nearly seven years of program building that included huge facility upgrades, the Tigers were set to compete nationally. They made the CFB Playoff and defeated Ohio State, but still fell short in the National Championship game against Alabama.

The next season, Watson returned for his junior year and the rest, as we say, is history.

See, the problem is this: Clemson had a long grind to get to where they are now. This didn’t happen overnight. Dabo Swinney made key moves to bring in Brent Venables and Chad Morris, subsequently with Jeff Scott and Tony Elliott taking over when Morris left.

There were years of growing, failing and building with this program- and many times when groups of the fan base wanted Dabo Swinney fired. Clemson is every bit as legitimate as Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan and Texas when it comes to brand and program strength, and Tiger fans need to enjoy the success because it was certainly earned, not given.