Clemson ‘not good enough’ in season-ending CFP loss. What’s next for Tigers program?

The numbers tell you this:

Clemson’s football team finished the 2024 season with just one win over a ranked opponent at time of kickoff. The Tigers were 0-3 against the SEC, considered the best conference in the sport. And they were 1-4 against the five best teams they played.

The numbers also tell you this:

Clemson went on the road and put up more total yards than anyone has all season against an elite Texas defense. The Tigers were within a touchdown of the Longhorns with 11 minutes left in the game. And they finished the season with 10 wins, an ACC championship and a College Football Playoff – a dream scenario for a lot of power conference teams.

In the wake of a 38-24 win loss to Texas in the first round of the CFP on Saturday, a true evaluation of Clemson’s program probably lies somewhere in between.

Texas (12-2) was the better team at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, and it showed. The Longhorns have the fourth most talented roster in the country, per 247Sports rankings, and routinely made the critical plays required of a championship team in an elimination game.

But it’s not like Clemson (10-4) didn’t belong.

“We had every opportunity to win it,” coach Dabo Swinney said postgame.

Playing in front of a hostile crowd of 101,150, the Tigers roared back from down 21 points to get within a single touchdown of the Longhorns in the fourth quarter.

And nobody in the stadium was dwelling on how Clemson closed as a 13.5-point underdog as quarterback Cade Klubnik and freshman wide receiver T.J. Moore cut up the nation’s No. 1 passing defense late in the game and got within a yard of another one-score game.

Even in the game’s final two minutes, with Texas up 38-24 and Clemson operating with zero timeouts, the sellout crowd at DKR couldn’t truly exhale until Klubnik’s final pass attempt – a fourth and 6 on Texas’ 26-yard line, with 1:16 left in the game – hit the ground, incomplete.

The Tigers, Swinney said, “know they’re good enough.”

Coming up short

But not good enough to stop Texas’ rushing attack (the Tigers allowed a season-high 292 yards). Not good enough to execute in every key moment (Clemson was stuffed for no gain on back-to-back plays from UT’s 1-yard line while trailing by 14 points late). Not good enough to cement the Tigers as indisputably “back.”

Don’t get it twisted: This was a resurgent season in many ways. Clemson appeared in the College Football Playoff for the first time in four years. The Tigers won 10 games (again) and the ACC championship (again) and at least one postseason game for a 14th straight year, adding to the standalone FBS record they already held.

Clemson has a game-changing quarterback in Klubnik, who had 43 total touchdowns and grew exponentially as a junior starter. True freshmen receivers Bryant Wesco Jr. and Moore are field-stretching stars. Same for true freshman linebacker Sammy Brown on defense, and defensive lineman Peter Woods and T.J. Parker.

This team’s going to be favored to win the ACC in 2025 for a reason.

“We’ve got a chance to be a really, really good football team,” Swinney said.

But success comes with caveats in Upstate South Carolina, where Clemson has two CFP national championship trophies on display in the team facility to remind the Tigers daily of their not-so-distant past, when making the postseason was just a checkmark along the way to far greater goals.

Those Clemson teams that ripped off six straight playoff appearances from 2015-20 and won two national titles played (and beat) the best of the best on a regular basis. They played fearsome defense. They lost seven games combined in a six-year period.

This version of Clemson has lost three or more games each of the past four seasons.

This version of Clemson went 0-3 against the SEC this year.

This version of Clemson is 3-7 in its last 10 games against SEC teams (wins vs. South Carolina twice and Kentucky) and 2-6 in its last eight games against AP Top 10 teams (wins vs. NC State and SMU).

Heck, it took the biggest upset in Syracuse history against Miami to get the Tigers to the ACC championship game in the first place and the longest walk-off field goal in FBS conference title game history (56 yards) to get them into the CFP.

At 10-3, with losses to UGA and USC and Louisville, Clemson was the lowest ranked team in both the CFP committee’s final top 25 ranking (No. 16) and the bracket itself (No. 12) and got beaten out by Boise State and Arizona State for first-round byes.

In other words: There’s been a ceiling to the Tigers’ success in recent years, with the 2024 team serving as a microcosm of that “close, but no cigar” vibe.

As Swinney put it on Saturday: “Good enough to get the playoff. Good enough to win the league. Not good enough to win it all.”

So, what has to change to go from nine wins or 10 wins to something more? To “the mountain,” as Swinney put it, that Clemson climbed just six years ago?

Looking on to 2025

In a dilemma that feels very Greek mythology-esque, the Tigers finally addressed a lingering lack of explosiveness at wide receiver this year by signing Wesco and Moore and paired them with elite quarterback play from Klubnik … only for the defense to take a major step back in 2024, especially in defending the run.

Addressing the shortcomings from that unit – which could include staff changes – will be chief among Swinney’s offseason duties, as will retaining Klubnik, Wesco, Moore and the other players responsible for Clemson’s best offensive season since Trevor Lawrence was around, as well as some key defenders.

The transfer portal can help, too.

Clemson has already added two players in former FCS Southeast Missouri State receiver Tristan Smith and Purdue edge rusher Will Heldt – moves celebrated far and wide by fans last week – and could absolutely use veteran players at other key spots, including running back and punter.

Then, there’s the matter of execution. The Tigers had the fifth-most talented roster in the country this year per 247Sports, yet they got run out of the stadium against Georgia, dominated by Louisville team and beaten down by rival South Carolina.

All three of those regular-season losses felt winnable at points before the little mistakes – penalties and drops, missed tackles and poor playcalls – started compounding and ultimately stalled drives, killed momentum and ended up as losses for a team capable of winning but incapable of putting it all together.

Just like Saturday’s Texas game.

“Again it stinks, but we’ll build on this,” Swinney said. “This will be just another step in the direction that we want to go to get back to the top of the mountain. You’ve got to put yourself in position. We did that. You’ve got to learn and grow. We’ll do that.”

Clemson football 2025 opponents

• Non-conference games: vs. LSU (Aug. 30), vs. Troy (Sept. 6), vs. FCS Furman (Nov. 22), at South Carolina (Nov. 29)

• ACC home opponents: Duke, Florida State, SMU, Syracuse

• ACC road games: Boston College, Georgia Tech, Louisville, UNC

Full 2025 ACC schedule with specific game dates announced in January