CLEMSON — It has been a long time since Clemson had the kind of season it did in 2025.

The Tigers went 7-6 and were embarrassed by Penn State in the Pinstripe Bowl. The days of playing for and winning national championships are long gone at Clemson, and now its time for the Tigers to find their way back to the top of the mountain.

“I mean everybody acts like we’ve been this terrible team for a long time,” head coach Dabo Swinney said.

He is right, Clemson has not been a terrible team. The program has not had a losing record in 16 years. They won the ACC Championship and were in the College Football Playoff two years ago. So, it is not all bad.

However, they are heading in the wrong direction.

Last year was Clemson’s worst season since 2010. The program was out of the ACC Championship race on Sept. 20 and lost six straight home games—dating back to 2024—to Power 4 opponents.

The Tigers have not been a serious national championship contender since Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne graduated from the program in 2020.

“Now we’re heading in the wrong direction. We got to get that turned around,” Swinney said. “And we’ve had some bad moments and stretches and, you know, to the point to certain things and all of that is true too.”

The expectations at Clemson for 2026 are as low as they have been in a while. For the first time since 2014, the Tigers will not be picked at the top in the ACC Preseason Poll. They will likely be unranked at the start of the year and, some even believe they could produce the program’s first losing record since 2010.

“It’s also true that we stumbled last year, and so did I,” Swinney said. “That’s true, too. All those things are true, but at the end of the day we have enough guys on our team that felt the pain and steam from last year and we haven’t had that in a long time.”

Swinney feels last year’s failure will motivate this team. It will motivate them to want to get back to the top of a league Clemson owned for more than a decade. It will motivate them to be the best version of themselves.

“We won 11 games, won the league, you know, whatever,” Swinney said. “I think that is a good thing, but you also got a bunch of new guys that are hungry to play exclusively to prove they can be a great player. They bring a ton of competition. So, I think it’s a combination of all those things.

“That’s all good. You know, I mean it’s disappointment, but failure is a part of success. It just is. It’s just a part of anybody becoming successful. And if you use it the right way, you will succeed.”