Joel Klatt is certainly buying stock in Clemson for the upcoming season.
Klatt, Fox Sports’ lead college football analyst, went through a “stock watch” exercise where he listed five teams he is buying for the 2025 season and five teams he is selling for 2025. He weighed in on various programs and discussed whether he thinks things are about to go up for those programs, or if now is the time to sell their stock before things go downhill.
Klatt ranked Clemson as the No. 1 team he is buying for the 2025 campaign, reiterating how high he is on Dabo Swinney’s Tigers entering the season.
“You’ve heard me talk about it kind of all offseason – Clemson is just really, really good,” he said. “I think they’re going to have an outstanding year. They finished with 10 [wins] last year, snuck into the playoff. They beat SMU in that championship game, gave Texas everything they could handle. Dabo seems to have like this confidence back.”
The Tigers are locked and loaded on both sides of the ball heading into this season, as Klatt talked about.
“They bring back 16 starters from last year’s group,” he said. “[Cade] Klubnik is back, third season as a starter, third season with his offensive coordinator, Garrett Riley. Four returning starters on the offensive line. They’re going to be seniors. I think the real question is running back. Gideon Davidson is a guy that’s a top-five running back [recruit]. He will be a true freshman. I think he could have an impact for them.
“Defense – loaded. Going to be one of the best defenses in the entire country. New defensive coordinator Tom Allen, he’s in at DC after coming from Penn State. They’ve got T.J. Parker, they’ve got Peter Woods, they’ve got Avieon Terrell at corner, Sammy Brown. Like, this team is going to be loaded, and it’s not a very difficult schedule.”
As for that schedule, Klatt listed Clemson’s toughest games as being vs. LSU (Saturday, Aug. 30), at Georgia Tech (Saturday, Sept. 13), vs. SMU (Saturday, Oct. 18), at Louisville (Friday, Nov. 14) and at South Carolina (Saturday, Nov. 29).
“You could make a strong argument that their two most difficult games are non-conference games,” Klatt said. “They’re going to have LSU in the opener, and they’re going to have South Carolina. I think both of those games are tougher than any game they have on the rest of their schedule.”
Klatt sees Clemson as a lock to make the 12-team College Football Playoff – and went so far as to say that he might pick the Tigers to be in the National Championship Game.
“This is a team that for sure will be in the playoff, and I think could make a deep run,” he said. “I’ll be pretty surprised if this is not a team in the national semifinals, and you know what, I’m toying around with, in my bracket, putting them as a team playing for the National Championship. We’ll just see who they play. So, my No. 1 buy team for 2025 – Clemson. I think Clemson’s going to be incredible, and again, trending upward from last season.”
You can see Klatt’s full lists of the teams he is buying and selling below, and hear his commentary on each of those teams in the following video:
Klatt’s buying these teams for 2025
- Clemson
- Michigan
- Utah
- Washington
- UNC
Klatt’s selling these teams for 2025
- Tennessee
- Wisconsin
- Syracuse
- BYU
- California