CLEMSON – College football analyst Josh Pate weighed in on Clemson’s championship potential and its implications for the Tigers’ future on Josh Pate’s College Football Show Monday.

“If you’re an agnostic fan, you don’t really side with anyone and you’re just kind of figuring out, ‘Alright, what can I depend on the most?’ Well, why not Clemson?” said Pate, a longtime college football podcast host.

After reviewing a list of preseason ranked teams, Pate shared that he feels more comfortable with the Tigers than any other team, including Texas, his original pick.

This confidence in the Tigers, according to Pate, is rooted in experience.

This season, Clemson enters with the No. 1 returning production rate of any FBS team. Additionally, the Tigers are coming off their second ACC championship in three years and their seventh College Football Playoff appearance in the last 10 seasons.

The team’s returning production includes six All-ACC honorees in offensive tackle Blake Miller, wide receiver Antonio Williams, defensive end T.J. Parker, defensive tackle Peter Woods, cornerback Avieon Terrell, and quarterback Cade Klubnik.

Additionally, Klubnik will be entering his third season as the Tigers’ starting quarterback alongside offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, who is also in his third year with the program.

 In today’s college football landscape, a signal caller and offensive coordinator pair with three years of experience together is nearly extinct.

Clemson also returns 21 underclassmen who got 200 or more snaps last season. This statistic, according to Pate, is a testament to head coach Dabo Swinney’s recruiting and development philosophies remaining strong through shifting modern college football dynamics.

“If they win the National Title this year, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a bigger ‘I told you so’ in the history of this sport,” Pate said. “If Dabo Swinney, after several years of having people tell him he’s going about the portal era the wrong way, he’s going about the NIL era the wrong way, I’m included in that… if after all that not only does he stay afloat, but he wins a National Title I don’t remember a bigger I told you so in the recent modern era of college football.”

Despite his faith in Clemson’s experienced roster, Pate acknowledges that this season will have significant implications for the next five years, for better or worse.

“If they fall off this year, if they’re just nine-and-three or eight-and-four, not terrible but well off the pace, well then you’d probably look at, it wouldn’t be disastrous but what it would be is a pretty telling sign that Clemson’s time in that conversation may be done,” he said.

For Pate, this season will be pivotal in determining whether or not there’s a “second chapter” to Swinney’s legacy. He believes that a 2025 championship would further elevate the culture at Clemson.

“How much has changed, and how little you’ve changed—that would be a point of pride,” he said.