Study shows just how dominant Clemson football has become

A new study shows just how elite Clemson football has become.

A new study wanted to prove or disprove how dominant the SEC had become but what I took away from it was how dominant Clemson football has become since Dabo Swinney was promoted in late 2008.

This study from Casino.ca looked at a lot of different variables from both a conference as well as an individual program perspective to see how dominant the SEC actually is. While they did prove how dominant several of the teams in the SEC are, it by no means shows how dominant the conference is.

Like every other conference, the SEC is very top-heavy and laughable at the bottom.

However, let’s take a look at where Clemson football ranks in several categories.

Total Wins

This category looked at wins from the last 22 years – the BCS and College Football Playoff eras. Since 1998, which was the last year of Tommy West, the Clemson Tigers have accumulated 205 total wins and if you remember, the 1998 Clemson program won just three games.

Prior to Dabo taking over, between 1998 the middle of 2008, the Tigers went 75-53 under coaches Tommy West and Tommy Bowden. From the middle of 20098 through the end of 2019, the Tigers have accumulated a record of 130-31.

Their combined record of 205-84 puts them eighth in total wins among major college football. That is the most wins by any ACC team during that time. How incredible is that, remember that included in this time frame, FSU was the most dominant team in college football as they finished in the AP Top 5 every year from 1987-2000.

FSU also won no less than eight games from 1998-2003 and has had 10 seasons where they finished with 10 or more wins between 1998-2019.

New Year’s Six Bowl Games

If you are unfamiliar, New Year’s Six Bowl Games are the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl.

Between 2000 and 2019, Clemson football has played in 10 of these games. Note – the national title game at these facilities is not that actual bowl game.

Those 10 appearances, Clemson football is 7-3. Their only losses were a 23-20 overtime loss to Auburn in the 2007 Chickfila Bowl, the 70-33 2011 Orange Bowl loss to West Virginia, and the 24-6 loss to Alabama in the 2018 Sugar Bowl.

Eight of these 10 appearances have been under the guidance of Dabo Swinney.

The only college football programs that have more appearances in New Year’s Six Bowl Games are Oklahoma (15), Ohio State (13), and LSU (11). For the record, Alabama has just eight appearances in New Year’s Six Bowl Games since 2000.

NFL Talent

This is always a big talking point for SEC fans. Somehow when their teams underachieve on the field, then turn the conversation to the number of players that they have in the NFL at the moment as if that will somehow give make a national title trophy appear in their empty trophy cases.

Clemson football had 28 former players on active NFL rosters.

There are just five SEC programs that have more than the Tigers do and as we pointed out yesterday, that just shows how elite the coaching is at Clemson. The Five SEC Schools with more players currently on active NFL rosters – Alabama (53), LSU (41), Florida (36), UGA (32), and Texas A&M (29).

Clemson football has clearly disrupted the SEC dominance over the last 10 seasons and with the talent on the roster and the talent currently committed to being Tigers in the future, their dominance will only get better.