CLEMSON — Remember when Dabo Swinney dismissed a question following Clemson’s loss to LSU in terms of roster construction?
He said, “What if we go 11-1? You promise you will ask me that then?”
Well, the Tigers will not be able to go 11-1 thanks to their loss to No. 4 Miami on Oct. 3. But what if I told you Clemson could go 10-2?
Would you take it?
What if I told you Clemson could play for an ACC Championship on Dec. 5? Would you take it?
Of course you would?
Now, I do not know what that means for Clemson’s future or future roster construction, that is a column for another day.
However, as crazy as it sounds, there is a path for Clemson to get to Charlotte and play for an ACC Championship.
What’s the path?
First, it starts by winning its remaining games, and for good measure, beating South Carolina too.
Why does beating South Carolina matter?
For two reasons.
First, the ACC’s new secondary tiebreaker metric for its football championship game is SportSource Analytics’ Team Success Ranking, which evaluates a team’s overall body of work using both conference and non-conference games.
This is in play because Clemson and two other schools—Boston College and Georgia Tech—are playing eight league games, while everyone else plays nine. It’s also in play because they do not want what happened last year when Duke, who finished the regular season 7-5 overall, playing in the championship game because of a technicality in the old tiebreaker rules.
Beating rival South Carolina, especially if the Gamecocks go on a run during the back of their schedule and get to 8-3, that could be a quality enough win to help the Tigers win a potential tiebreaker in the ACC race.
Not sure that would happen, but it is a nice feather in the cap — chicken feather, I guess.
It is also a nice feather in the cap in terms of maybe earning an at-large bid to the College Football Playoff. I do not think it will happen, but you can’t rule out anything right now.
I know you guys hate hearing this, but everything is in front of the Tigers.
But winning out will likely not be enough to get Clemson into the ACC Championship Game. They will likely need some help along the way, again because the Tigers play one less conference game than most of the league.
Currently, Clemson (3-2, 2-1 ACC) is tied for third place in the ACC standings, a half-game back of Wake Forest for second. They are tied with Pitt, SMU, Virginia and Cal for third place.
The Tigers have beaten Cal already, but do not play the other three teams this season. So, they will need some help. They got some last week with North Carolina, Cal and Georgia Tech all getting upset wins.
They will need more.
Here is the rest of Clemson’s schedule and why the Tigers have a shot at winning every single game.
- Sat. vs. Charleston Southern (FCS) – goes without saying
- Oct. 24 vs. Virginia Tech (4-2, 1-2) – lost to Cal and should have lost to BC
- Oct. 31 at Florida State (3-3, 1-2) – could be done after loss to Miami on Saturday
- Nov. 7 at Syracuse (2-3, 0-3) – playing with their fourth string QB right now
- Nov. 14 vs. Georgia Tech (2-3, 1-1) – Tech is a one-legged team on offense
- Nov. 21 at Duke (4-1, 1-1) – the Yellow Jackets could have several losses
- No. 28 South Carolina (3-3) – dates with Vols, Sooners and No. 1 Bulldogs remain
As you can see, all seven games remaining on the schedule are very winnable. If the Tigers can play to the level they played against Miami than they could find their way to Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, where they will take on—more than likely—Miami.
If you get to that point, who knows, maybe they can make the playoffs. Crazier things have happened – look at 2024 for an example.