Clemson is still a serious ACC title contender until proven otherwise. No program has defined this conference over the last decade-plus more than Dabo Swinney's Tigers. However, they are coming off their worst season in a generation. Furthermore, Clemson, per some, no longer strikes fear in ACC opponents. Miami has emerged as a national title threat. Louisville and SMU are ascending programs on the rise as well.
Although the Tigers will not play them this regular season, Swinney's team should not tolerate letting Jeff Brohm and Rhett Lashlee's programs walk around in the upper echelon of the ACC like they own the place. To date, neither of them has won the ACC before. Neither has Miami, but the Canes just played for a national title. It kind of makes you wonder if Clemson is being sorely overlooked in all this.
FOX Sports' Joel Klatt may have said it best on his podcast about if Clemson still has "a fear factor."
“My wonder, is there still a fear factor of Clemson in the ACC? That used to be a team that was like, man, how in the world do you beat Clemson? I don’t feel like that’s there anymore,” Klatt said. "A successful year for Clemson means that you’ve got to re-establish yourself as a minimum second-place team in the ACC. What you can’t have is SMU and Louisville feeling as if they’ve passed you.”
There was a time when drawing Clemson on your ACC schedule was essentially a death sentence. The Tigers made six straight College Football Playoffs from 2015 to 2020, playing in four national championships, and winning two national titles. Sadly, 2018 is a long time ago. Even more concerning, Clemson is coming off a year where the Tigers went 4-4 in ACC play. That is Tommy Bowden schlock.
Clemson may have to wait until Charlotte to get a crack at the Cardinals or Mustangs. Truth be told, it is better if neither of them even makes it there. We should be hoping for a rematch with Miami instead.
Clemson must prove the ACC doesn't need Louisville or SMU to be CFP viable
What Clemson needs to do is re-establish itself within the context of ACC play. Every game involving the Tigers needs to be a knockdown, drag-out fight. Clemson may not win every game, but every team that gets the best of them will have had to earn it. No more easy victories shall be had when taking on Clemson.
This means Clemson needs to beat up on the likes of Duke, Georgia Tech, and Syracuse this year, instead of losing to them in embarrassing fashion as they did a season ago. Yes, Clemson still has to play ACC favorite Miami, but that game is at home and in the first half of the campaign. Miami may not have had enough time to round into form by then.
Simply put, as long as Clemson wins the rest of its conference games outside of the Miami date, the chances of the Tigers getting to Charlotte are quite high. The rest of their ACC schedule is rather manageable. Assuming they split the SEC pair of games with LSU and South Carolina, we could be looking at a 10-2 Clemson team playing for playoff seeding during the ACC Championship Game.
If that is the case, then maybe the ACC doesn't need to put any more stock into Louisville and SMU than it already has? What have we seen in their combined football histories to show they can carry a conference like Clemson or Miami have? Florida State has that in them, but the Seminoles have much bigger fish to fry heading into this season. Louisville and SMU are fine programs, just not great ones...
Louisville and SMU are ascending, but they have yet to surpass Clemson in the ACC hierarchy.
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