Where Clemson Landed in This Ranking of 25 Best Football Schools
By: Gavin Oliver April 13, 2025

A national outlet recently ranked the top 25 football schools, with College Football News (CFN) highlighting the best “based on historical greatness.”

Clemson earned “blue blood” status, as the Tigers met the threshold (at least 20 seasons with 10 or more wins) needed to get into CFN’s “blue blood” club.

The Tigers – who have exactly 20 seasons of 10-plus wins, to go with three national titles – came in at No. 13 overall in CFN’s ranking of the 25 best football schools.

At the No. 13 spot, Clemson is the final team in the “blue bloods” tier.

Here’s the basic criteria CFN used to determine that tier:

1) How many 10-win college football seasons does your school have? It’s an easy number, and it shows consistency and longevity. Back in the day, teams didn’t even play ten games, so this gives some nod to the schools with more recent success.

2) This only includes the 136 schools currently playing in the FBS (no Princeton or Yale).

3) ONLY FBS seasons count, so some of the former FCS/D-IAA superstar programs don’t get any love for past greatness.

4) We deemphasize national titles a wee bit. For most of the 150+ years of the game, national championships were based on an opinion at best, a guess at the worst – remember, there wasn’t TV for almost half of the sport’s history. Also, we only recognize the national titles awarded by the major outlets at the time – don’t get mad at us, Alabama fans.

Joining the Tigers in that tier are the following programs: Tennessee (No. 12), Notre Dame (No. 11), Texas and Florida State (tied for No. 9), Penn State (No. 8), Nebraska and Southern Cal (tied for No. 6), Georgia (No. 5), Ohio State and Michigan (tied for No. 3), Oklahoma (No. 2) and Alabama (No. 1).

The Crimson Tide own the top spot with their 44 10-win seasons and 15 national titles.

Along with Clemson and Florida State, the other ACC programs that appeared in CFN’s ranking of the top 25 football schools are Miami (tied for No. 17) and Virginia Tech (tied for No. 22).

Clemson’s opponent for the 2025 season opener, LSU, is ranked No. 16.