This time a year ago, Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt was one of the national analysts who predicted Clemson to win the national championship.

That certainly isn’t the case this year, with Dabo Swinney’s Tigers coming off a highly disappointing 7-6 campaign in 2025.

“Last season went about as poorly as it possibly could’ve,” Klatt said in a recent episode of his podcast. “Maybe my fault. Good news for Clemson this year, I am not picking them to win the national championship. Nice selection last year, Klatt. Way to go [laughing]. I thought they had it all. I thought they had the blueprint.”

Instead of picking Clemson to win the national title in 2026, Klatt defined what he believes a successful season would look like for the Tigers this year.

Klatt says success for Clemson means getting back to the ACC Championship Game, where the Tigers have been so often over the years while claiming nine conference titles during Swinney’s tenure.

“For Clemson, a successful year would be making the ACC Championship Game. They’ve got to do that,” Klatt said. “They’ve got to re-establish that they’re a top-level team, with Miami, in the ACC.”

Klatt says the Tigers need to bridge the conference gap with Miami, and regain the “fear factor” that he thinks Swinney’s program has lost.

“My wonder, is there still a fear factor of Clemson in the ACC? That used to be a team that was like, man, how in the world do you beat Clemson? I don’t feel like that’s there anymore,” Klatt said. “So, success for me is making sure that Miami doesn’t run and hide in the ACC. You see, for me, a successful year for Clemson means that you’ve got to re-establish yourself as a minimum second-place team in the ACC. What you can’t have is SMU and Louisville feeling like they’ve passed you. Because in parts of their program and their buildings, they feel like they have, in particular after that 4-4 year in the ACC a year ago.”

Klatt noted that the Tigers are tasked with replacing a bunch of key players, but still have plenty of stars back and also utilized the transfer portal much more heavily this offseason.

“They’ve got to replace a ton of talent, obviously. Quarterback [Cade] Klubnik, Peter Woods, T.J. Parker, Avieon Terrell,” Klatt said. “But they still have a lot of talented players in the woodwork. They’ve got Bryant Wesco, T.J. Moore, Sammy Brown at linebacker, Will Heldt on the edge. And they also brought in some portal players. They brought in 11 guys out of the portal, which doesn’t sound like many. But, but, that is more than the total number of players that they have ever brought in before out of the transfer portal. So, Dabo dipping his toe. Here we go! Dabo is leveling up here, modernizing this roster for the Clemson Tigers.”

Clemson will open the 2026 season at LSU on Sept. 5 (7:30 p.m.). For new LSU head coach Lane Kiffin’s Tigers, Klatt says a successful season means reaching the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.

Among the other teams that Klatt defined success for is Miami, which will travel to Clemson on Oct. 3. Klatt says a successful season for the Hurricanes would be winning the ACC and reaching the CFP semifinals.