Going into the season opener against LSU last year, Clemson was ranked fourth in the AP Poll and one of the media darlings of the offseason. Multiple national analysts even picked Dabo Swinney’s team to win the national title.

However, LSU quickly derailed the Clemson hype train, handing Swinney’s Tigers a 17-10 loss at Clemson’s Death Valley. Things spiraled from there and went downhill in a hurry, with Clemson starting 1-3 and then 3-5 before rallying over the final regular season games to become bowl eligible.

When it was all said and done, Clemson finished 7-6, the second-worst record of Swinney’s long tenure as head coach. And now, going into the 2026 campaign, Swinney knows people aren’t picking his Tigers to win the ACC title or national championship like some pundits were a year ago at this time.

Swinney also knows that predictions are just meaningless predictions. The thing that truly matters is what happens on the field this fall.

“It’s not what people predict,” Swinney said Thursday at the 2026 ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte, N.C. “If it was about what people said, what they predicted, we win the league last year and go to the national championship.

“This year, ain’t none of y’all going to pick us. Ain’t none of y’all going to say anything good about us.”

Swinney, now entering his 19th season (and 18th full season) as Clemson’s head coach, says “if it was about what people predicted, I would have been gone a long time ago.”

“I’ve been dead. I’m gone. I think I’m still here, all right?” Swinney said. “But it’s not about that either. It never has been.”

“It’s about what you do,” he continued. “That’s what it’s about.”

Swinney and the Tigers head into 2026 hoping to bounce back from a season last year that simply “stunk.”

“We stunk last year,” Swinney said. “That’s true, too. We’ve lost some games that, man, we should have won. How about we give the opponent some credit? How about we give some other coaches some credit? Football is not easy. It’s hard.”

“This is a new year,” Swinney added. “We’re excited about it. Hey, we put our head down and see if we can go find a way to win some games.”

Expectations for Clemson entering 2026, at least externally, are far lower than they were in 2025. And haters are gonna hate, Swinney says, coming off last year’s struggles and disappointment. But in the words of Swinney, the Tigers will “get what we earn this year.”

“That’s what we’re focused on, doing what it takes to earn the results that we want,” Swinney said. “These guys have been working toward that, but, you know, it’s not about what we say. Haters hate, right? As I said, there’s a bunch of hate. I don’t know who wrote that song, but the one thing about haters, when you win, it don’t matter what they say. And when you lose, it don’t matter what you say. So don’t focus on that. Let’s focus on let’s go get better.”