While the hype for Clemson's opener against LSU is sky-high, head coach Dabo Swinney brought a dose of reality to the conversation, explaining why Week 1 in college football is inherently one of the most unpredictable games of the season. His reasoning? The lack of a preseason – a luxury afforded to professional teams.
"We're the only level of football that has zero preseason," Swinney said, echoing a point he's made many times before. "There's a reason why they play all the preseason games [in the NFL], because they need to evaluate. You can only get so much done at practice."
Swinney argued that without game-speed evaluation against different opponents, teams enter the season with significant unknowns about their own identity, let alone their opponent's.
"It's hard to get comfortable," he stated. "You're going against your same people, you're not gonna hit your quarterback... it's a lot of familiarity."
This creates a "community challenge," as Swinney put it, especially in a high-profile matchup like LSU, where both teams have new personnel and schemes that haven't been truly tested.
"There's just so much you don't know," Swinney warned. "All you – they got a ton of new people you don't know much about. You have no video like you can look at last year... you don't really truly know what a team's identity [is]."
Swinney suggested that if college football had three or four preseason games, coaches would have a better "feel" for their team's identity coming out of camp. But for now, Week 1 is a leap of faith for everyone involved.
"It always unknowns, and until you get games into a season, you don't really truly know what a team's identity [is]."