Last year, Clemson was ranked No. 4 in the preseason AP Poll and came into the season with national championship expectations, only to go 7-6 and finish the year with a loss to Penn State in the Pinstripe Bowl.
That 7-6 record in 2025 marks the second-worst season in Dabo Swinney’s tenure as Clemson’s head coach. The only worse season was 2010, when the Tigers went 6-7.
While last season was a hugely disappointing one, multiple former Tigers believe that Swinney will get his program back on the right track.
The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman spoke with Clemson draft prospects at the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine, and according to Dochterman, they “have faith that Swinney will steer the program in the right direction.”
“This year we’re gonna be back,” former Clemson cornerback Avieon Terrell said, via Dochterman.
Swinney has a career head coaching record of 187-53. He is Clemson’s all-time winningest coach, the winningest coach in ACC history and the first coach to lead the Tigers to multiple national championships. The Tigers have won nine ACC titles under Swinney, including eight in the last 11 seasons, while he has guided Clemson to seven College Football Playoff appearances.
Swinney and Georgia’s Kirby Smart are the only active coaches with multiple national titles. In 13 of the last 15 years, Swinney’s Clemson program has won 10-plus games, though the Tigers have won fewer than 10 games in two of the last three seasons.
On the heels of how the 2025 season went, Clemson added 10 transfers this offseason, its biggest transfer portal class in a single cycle.
“I would say, just get the guys in the room who love Clemson,” former Clemson linebacker Wade Woodaz said, regarding how Clemson should get back on the right trajectory.
“I think coach Swinney did that, using the portal this year.”
Woodaz added that while he obviously isn’t pleased that the Tigers went 7-6 his senior year, he thinks “it was needed for the trajectory of Clemson.”
“Coach Swinney has a process,” Woodaz said. “He’s had a lot of success. He knows what to do. I think they’re back on the right track.”
After a 1-3 start last season, Clemson won six of its last eight games in the regular season and ended the regular season on a four-game winning streak. Swinney went so far as to say that the 2025 squad “is the greatest turnaround team in Clemson history,” referencing the fact that they became the first team in school history to win seven games in a season in which the team started the year with one win or fewer through four games.
Clemson will kick off its 2026 season on Sept. 5, when it faces LSU at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, La. Clemson will try to avenge last season’s 17-10 loss to LSU at Memorial Stadium in Clemson.
“They have all the pieces,” former Clemson wide receiver Antonio Williams said of the Tigers. “You’ve got to get that mentality back where nothing’s given to you or everything’s earned. Five years ago, they were at the pinnacle of sports, and Clemson was the team everybody wanted to watch. And we’ve kind of taken a step back in recent years and haven’t been as dominant in the playoffs.”
