After entering last season as a top-four team with expectations of being a national championship contender, Clemson will enter the 2026 campaign looking to bounce back from a disappointing 7-6 record in 2025, the second-worst season in Dabo Swinney’s 17 full seasons as the Tigers’ head coach.

Looking ahead to this fall, a panel of ESPN college football reporters gave their takes on the teams, coaches and players who’ll have the most to prove.

Andrea Adelson pegged Clemson as the team with the most to prove in 2026.

“We could have put Clemson down as the answer to this question for the past four years, but this time we really mean it,” Adelson wrote. “There is no sugarcoating the disappointment from 2025, when the Tigers finished 7-6 despite having a veteran team filled with future NFL draft picks. Coach Dabo Swinney went more heavily into the portal this offseason, particularly on defense, and went back to his past to hire Chad Morris as offensive coordinator to try to fix a stagnant offense. But there are major questions across the board with so many veterans gone. Swinney and his players need to show they have the answers.”

Clemson will kick off its 2026 season on Sept. 5, when it faces LSU at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.

Lane Kiffin, who is heading into his first season as LSU’s head coach, was tabbed by ESPN’s Jake Trotter as the coach with the most to prove.

“Lane Kiffin bailed on Ole Miss and his Rebel players ahead of the playoff to bolt to rival LSU (and yet, people really still fault players for making decisions in their own best interest?),” Trotter wrote. “LSU is paying Kiffin $91 million to win national championships. Given the way he left his former team high and dry, and what the Tigers have invested in their roster, anything less won’t — and shouldn’t — be acceptable.”

Meanwhile, Adelson circled Florida State’s Mike Norvell as the coach with the most to prove this season.

Clemson will visit Tallahassee on Oct. 31, as the Tigers seek to extend their current road winning streak against the Seminoles at Doak Campbell Stadium to five games.

“It has to be Florida State head coach Mike Norvell,” Adelson wrote regarding Norvell as the coach with the most to prove. “Nothing has gone right since the CFP snub following a 13-0 ACC championship season in 2023. Since then, Florida State has won only seven games in two years. Despite all that, the school’s administration opted to retain Norvell for a seventh season, but there is little doubt the Seminoles have to get back to the postseason. Norvell and everyone associated with the program know the past two seasons have not been acceptable. Florida State made structural changes to its personnel department and went heavy into the portal again to try to win now.”

When Clemson hosts rival South Carolina at Memorial Stadium on Nov. 28, the Tigers will try to beat the Gamecocks for the 10th time in 12 games in the series dating back to 2014.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly highlighted South Carolina’s Shane Beamer as the coach with the most to prove.

“Shane Beamer has made the most of a couple of great bursts — beating 11-win Tennessee and Clemson teams back to back in 2022, ripping off a six-game winning streak to end the 2024 regular season — and that has earned him a sixth year in charge at South Carolina,” Connelly wrote. “But he’s only 33-30 in five seasons, and he completely wasted what was supposed to be a breakout season for quarterback LaNorris Sellers in 2025. He brought in offensive coordinator Kendal Briles and made another offensive line overhaul this offseason, and hey, if he’s going to thrive, it’s evidently going to be in an even-numbered season. But if he doesn’t prove himself this fall, he’ll probably be out of a job.”

South Carolina defensive end Dylan Stewart was named by Trotter as the non-quarterback who has the most to prove, while Sam Leavitt, who transferred to LSU this offseason from Arizona State, was picked by Adam Rittenberg as the quarterback with the most to prove.