Heading into the 2025 season, Joel Klatt was one of the national analysts who predicted Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers to win the national championship.
A year later, Klatt, Fox Sports’ lead college football analyst, is still eating crow for that pick.
“What are we doing with Dabo? After your boy, sitting in this chair last year, crowned him as my preseason national champ. How ‘bout that for a pick? What a bonehead. My goodness. Re-think everything about myself. I know that makes some of you happy, others, you don’t care,” Klatt said on the latest episode of The Joel Klatt Show.
During the episode, Klatt went through his “Coaching Pressure Index” — evaluating 10 head coaches and how much pressure they are under going into the upcoming season.
Clemson was ranked No. 4 in the preseason AP Poll going into the 2025 season, only to end up at 7-6 — the second-worst record in Swinney’s tenure — even with a talented roster that ultimately produced nine picks in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Swinney, 56, is now entering his 19th season (and 18th full season) as Clemson’s head coach, and Klatt put Swinney in the “Coaching Pressure Index” category of “We like you, but…”.
“Didn’t go well last year,” Klatt said. “Started No. 4 in the preseason. I wasn’t the only one hot on Clemson. They started No. 4. Finished 7-6. Guys, what are we doing? Had all those draft picks. Experienced quarterback. Clemson has not finished in the top 10 since Trevor Lawrence. That was five seasons [ago]. Dabo’s in his 18th full year at Clemson. He’s been heavily criticized for not adapting to the new world of college football. He has slowly come around.
“I think Clemson fans, at this point, are saying to themselves, ‘We like you, but…’ So, that’s the category he falls into.”
Klatt also pointed out the particular game on Clemson’s 2026 schedule that could really ratchet up the pressure if things go sideways.
That pressure point game, Klatt says, is not as much the Sept. 5 season opener at LSU – but more so, the Oct. 3 home game against the Miami Hurricanes, who are coming off a run to last season’s national title game.
“There is a huge pressure point for Dabo — Miami in their fifth game,” Klatt said. “Now, they’ve got LSU. It could be LSU. You might be right. But Miami’s in conference, and Clemson has run the ACC. Run it. They have dominated the ACC. Now, it seems like Miami’s conference, and you start to wonder to yourself, ‘What’s the gap? What’s the margin? How wide is it?’
“Is Miami head and shoulders above Clemson? They were a year ago. They were a year ago. Miami’s going to be loaded again. Again. Miami’s going to be fantastic. They [Clemson] open with LSU. That is going to be tough. If that goes poorly and then Miami goes poorly – ‘We like you, but…’ turns into something very different. Very, very different.”
In addition to Swinney, three opposing coaches on Clemson’s 2026 schedule made Klatt’s “Coaching Pressure Index” – LSU’s Lane Kiffin, South Carolina’s Shane Beamer and North Carolina’s Bill Belichick. Kiffin fell into the category of “just happy you’re here”, while Beamer and Belichick are both in the category of “is this going to work?”