Kevin Clark, who hosts This Is Football on ESPN, was joined by “Stanford Steve” Coughlin to give some takes that they want to own this football season.
So, what is the No. 1 college football take that Coughlin wants to own for the 2025 campaign?
That take is – Coughlin believes Clemson will be on track for an undefeated season if Dabo Swinney’s team beats LSU in the Aug. 30 season opener (7:30 p.m., ABC).
“If Clemson wins Week 1, they’re going undefeated,” Coughlin said.
Explaining that take, Coughlin cited the return of star quarterback Cade Klubnik and the wealth of weapons he has at wide receiver – similar to the type of talent Clemson had at quarterback and receiver in past glory years.
“I look at just how different one year is in this sport, where last year when you looked at, say, I don’t know, the top 12 teams in the preseason, and every quarterback was from somewhere else,” Coughlin said. “And now when you look at that, this ranking’s going to come out – there’s some people’s “too-early whatever” — these quarterbacks have been at the school for over a year at least, or got recruited there. Example 1A, and maybe 1B, are Austin, Texas with Arch [Manning], and Cade Klubnik, who lost to Texas last year, and Clemson. And when I watch Clemson, everybody wants to point to how Dabo didn’t [use] the portal… Internet having their way of how people should be doing things that have had success and won national championships, and he’s one of a handful of guys that has won a title that is still coaching in the sport.
“So, and more importantly, when I look at Clemson, guys aren’t leaving to go other places. Now, what was Clemson when they were at the top of the world? It was Wide Receiver U, man. You go back and look at all the guys, going back to Nuk [Hopkins] all the way with Tajh Boyd, winning a national championship with Deshaun [Watson], with Mike [Williams], and it’s embedded.”
Coughlin also mentioned how competitive Clemson was against Texas in the first round of the College Football Playoff last season, noting that the 12th-seeded Tigers were on the cusp of an upset win over the fifth-seeded Longhorns in Austin, Texas.
But because Clemson ultimately lost, 38-24, Coughlin pointed out that the Tigers have plenty of motivation heading into the 2025 season after falling short a year ago.
Coughlin says Clemson has “exactly what I want in a team that I think is going to be successful in this ever-changing world of college football.”
“They get a stop late in that game [at Texas], it’s a one-score game and they have the ball in Austin, Texas,” Coughlin said. “And I love what they bring defensively… They took the long road to get there. They recruited them and developed them… I love what Clemson has, and I still think the ACC is not where the league would like it to be. I think the league, in some instances, think they have like five teams that are worthy of making the playoff — they don’t… I look at Clemson as the cream of the crop of the conference, though.
“And I look at what they have instilled, I look at the guys that are coming back and felt the failure in the biggest spot. They were sky-high, upsetting SMU to get in the playoff, and then a couple weeks later, they’re going home and it’s winter conditioning, which is the most depressing thing in the world when your season is over and you have to think about winter conditioning as a player. So, I love that they went through it and succeeded — and failed, and didn’t get to their goal… They have exactly what I want in a team that I think is going to be successful in this ever-changing world of college football.”