Just because they aren't on the list now doesn't mean they won't be invited later on. That is how much of the college football world views the Clemson Tigers these days. While they should have been ranked inside the top 25 to start, Dabo Swinney's team can use all that extra motivation to crash the College Football Playoff party. CBS Sports' Brad Crawford is not ruling that out for Clemson just yet.
He has the Tigers as one of eight unranked teams that he believes can reach the playoffs. While he also has Virginia listed as a candidate out of the ACC, Clemson is the team to bank on bouncing back in a big way. The Tigers have a manageable ACC schedule, a revamped offense under the direction of Chad Morris, and above all else, an incredibly motivated team. Let's not paint Clemson into a corner.
While the Tigers have to usher in a new quarterback, Christopher Vizzina seems to be the leader this team needs under center. Clemson can play the "nobody believes in us" card, but the Tigers have more people wanting to see them succeed than you might think. We know how wild the ACC can be. To date, the three ranked ACC teams in Louisville, Miami, and SMU have never won the league before.
There could come a time and place to quit on Clemson, but we need to see this season play out first.
Clemson has the ideal runway to blast off into the College Football Playoff
The Tigers may draw LSU right out of the gate, but Crawford is right in that a loss over in Baton Rouge is not a death sentence for Clemson's playoff aspirations. LSU could be a playoff team. After all, Lane Kiffin's team was ranked some 15 spots ahead of Clemson in the Preseason AP Top 25 Poll. As the No. 11 team in the country, they would be the last at-large team in. This could be a high-quality loss.
Beyond that, the only other ranked team Clemson could face this year is No. 7 Miami. The Tigers get the Hurricanes at home in the first half of the season. That smells like a potential trap game for Mario Cristobal's team. Outside of that, it is a lot of Cal, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, and Syracuse on Clemson's schedule. The Tigers need to beat South Carolina, but the Palmetto Bowl will be at home.
With Clemson's regular-season schedule being feasible, that could play a part in Morris' offense taking flight. He came back to Clemson to fix what Garrett Riley never could. Morris plans to use the uptempo spread to his advantage. Clemson already has more talented athletes than most of the ACC teams it will play. It is all about getting playmakers the ball in space to go make something happen.
Even if Clemson re-hired the right offensive coordinator, it needed that extra source of motivation to come out of its navigable schedule in one piece. This team is hungrier than ever, but the right leaders need to manifest. Thankfully, there are more to be had than there were last year. Whether it be Vizzina, linebacker Sammy Brown, or edge rusher Will Heldt, they are all pulling in the same direction this year.
Right now, Clemson has as good a runway to prove its doubters wrong and just make the playoffs anyway. While they won't come out of nowhere like Arizona State or Indiana did two years ago, they could make the AP voters look foolish for not ranking them to start. James Madison and Tulane should have been ranked to start out last season, but the Group of Five label got in the way of all that.
Since the ACC never does what is best for the ACC, that should play right into the hands of Clemsn.
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