Clemson football: Paul Finebaum thinks the Tigers are cycling out

Clemson football fans have relished in the opportunities to watch Paul Finebaum continuously be wrong over the past half-decade.

There has been no bigger threat to the SEC and its perceived dominance than Clemson football and that shows in the way the popular SEC Network analyst has treated the Tigers during their run of six-straight CFB Playoffs.

Over the course of the last half-decade, Finebaum has said that Clemson wouldn’t be physical enough to match-up with Alabama teams in which the Tigers went on to beat. He said the 2018 National Championship game would be a landslide in the Crimson Tide’s favor, but that proved to be the exact opposite.

Now, as we enter the 2021 season, Finebaum once again has some negative words to hurl the Tigers’ way.

On an appearance Keyshawn, JWill and Zubin, Finebaum said he believes Clemson be exposed by Georgia in the season-opener. Then, of course, he thinks the ACC schedule will leave the Tigers out of the running for the CFB Playoff.

"“I think Clemson is too high. I’m not buying Clemson this year, I think they’ll lose to Georgia in the first game. And then they have really nowhere to go because they play a rather pedestrian ACC schedule,” Finebaum said via The Clemson Insider."

When Johnson pushed back and talked about the matchups on-the-field against the Bulldogs, Finebaum was quick to revert to last year’s game against Ohio State and is using that as an indicator on the state of the Clemson football program.

"“Well Keyshawn, I didn’t like the way Clemson finished last season. I thought their defense was very vulnerable,” Finebaum said. “I don’t think the quarterback is going to be that big of a deal because they have really great wide receivers and D.J. is not Trevor Lawrence but he’s still really good. To me the defense has trailed off ever so slightly the last two years and that’s the issue.”"

What Paul Finebaum is basically saying is that he thinks Clemson football is cycling out

While he didn’t come out and say it, Finebaum’s comments are eerily similar to another SEC homer who had things to say a few years ago: The beloved Todd Ellis.

For those that don’t remember, Ellis said that South Carolina was the up-and-coming program and that he was seeing kinks in the armor of Clemson. He said Dabo Swinney and the Tigers were “scared to death” of the progress made by Will Muschamp and that they were “cycling out.”

Now, we’ve got Finebaum saying that Clemson’s defense has “tailed off” and that D.J. Uiagalelei won’t be as good as Trevor Lawrence.

We can understand in a way why there are national analysts thinking this way. Clemson did get embarrassed in its last two CFB Playoff appearances, but let’s not forget that those two games were against two elite offenses and one in LSU that dropped 45+ on every single opponent it played that year.

For all those thinking the defense is going to stay down, though, have you even looked at the personnel?

Clemson has the potential to have four NFL defensive linemen in its starting lineup. The Tigers have two potential top-10 picks in Bryan Bresee and Myles Murphy. Oh, and then the depth behind those guys is full of 4-stars and 5-stars. The linebackers are as experienced as they’ve ever been. There are questions in the secondary, but do you know what helps out a secondary? When the defensive line is getting pressure on the quarterback every single play.

It’s also unclear where this love and ordainment for Georgia is coming from, either.

Georgia has just as many questions in its secondary and offensive line as Clemson does and the Bulldogs have an inferior coach.

Since we’re going off of “last season,” we should also point out that the Bulldogs didn’t even win their division– and it’s not as if the SEC East is some gauntlet– and they barely pulled off a win against Cincinnati in the bowl game. What, other than bias or SEC allegiance, would make anyone think that Georgia should be considered the guaranteed win– as Finebaum has played them up to be– against Clemson?

Though they’re not outright saying it, there are many analysts– including Finebaum– who believe the days of dominance within the Clemson football program are over.

They better hope they’re right this time, though, because we see a different and almost opposite outlook. But, then again, we’re not basing our opinion off of one game.