After another season-opening defeat, and this one being of the embarrassing variety, Clemson once again finds itself in a position of needing a big response.

With the Tigers coming off a rather disheartening 51-10 defeat, in which Dabo Swinney’s team looked thoroughly overmatched, questions linger about how Clemson will respond.

A year ago, after LSU squeaked out a 17-10 victory in Memorial Stadium to start the season, the Tigers did not respond well.. The following week, Clemson trailed Troy 16-3 at halftime before coming back and winning 27-16. The next week, Georgia Tech upset the Tigers on a 55-yard walk-off field goal. One week later, Syracuse came into Clemson and thumped Swinney’s team 34-21, in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score might indicate.

Suddenly, a team that entered the season at No. 4 in the AP Poll with College Football Playoff aspirations was sitting at just 1-3. All of those preseason expectations were quickly out the window. The Tigers did eventually find their footing, winning the last four regular-season games before losing to Penn State in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Two years ago, Georgia beat Clemson 30-3 to kick off the 2024 campaign. The Tigers went on to win nine of the next 11 games, winning the ACC and securing a spot in the inaugural 12-team playoff.

That is the kind of response Swinney is hoping to see with this team, and it all starts on Saturday against Georgia Southern.

“It’s all about how you respond,” Swinney said. “Things happen to you in life, especially in this arena. We played a great team in the opener in a tough environment. It didn’t go our way — they might be the best team in the country, I don’t know. But I know we’re better than the way we played. And we’re going to be better. I do know that.”

Saturday was not the only embarrassing defeat in recent memory. On top of the whipping at the hands of Syracuse last season, Clemson has dropped two straight to Duke, including a 28-7 loss to start the 2023 season. Georgia dismantled the Tigers 30-3 to start the 2024 season. Louisville also beat Clemson rather handily, and at home, that season. Notre Dame put one on the Tigers in South Bend in 2022, 35-14, another one that was not as close as the final score might suggest.

So, it is not like Swinney has never been in this position. However, Saturday’s loss to LSU felt different. Again, Clemson wasn’t even competitive, and to be quite honest, the Tigers looked ill-prepared knowing what kind of challenge they faced by playing in Baton Rouge. It was basically what amounted to a football game with men against boys.

The performance has started to generate real converastions surrounding Swinney’s future at Clemson. The temperature has been raised dramtically.

While the world around him might be crashing down, Swinney insists what happened against LSU was just one chapter in what will be a long season, and that his Clemson team still has 11 more chances to decide how it wants its story to end.

“Just gotta go win games, man,” the head coach added. “It’s a long season. Narratives come and go. It’s all about what you do. We earned that. We played really poor football, and I thought LSU played great football. A little bit of a perfect storm in some areas, and next thing you know, it gets away, and that can happen. We ran into a buzzsaw.”

Maybe Clemson goes out and does what it did two seasons ago. After getting handled by Georgia in Atlanta, the Tigers responded by putting up 66 points against App State the next week. Struggle again this week, and the pressure increases substantially.

“We didn’t do what we needed to do,” Swinney said. “What you do is you go win games, one week at a time, and you try to get better. Learn and grow.”