The Clemson Insider went back and ranked Clemson’s 25 best teams of all-time.
What classifies a certain team as one of the best? Of course winning a championship—national or conference—will be the first qualification. The other qualifications are overall record, national ranking and where they fell in the conference standings.
We continue our rankings with the No. 2 team on our list:
The 2015 Tigers (14-1, 8-0 ACC, ACC Champions, ranked No. 2)
There is only reason why the 2015 team isn’t considered to be Clemson’s best of all-time. They did not win it all.
Last year was a magical season for the Tigers as they did things that had not been done before at Clemson. They won 14 straight games, the longest winning streak ever inside a season. The 14 wins tied Alabama for the most in the country. For the first time during a regular season they were ranked No. 1, a status they held for much of the year.
Clemson was ranked No. 1 in all three major polls heading into the bowl season. It marked the fourth straight week they topped all three polls. The Tigers were No. 1 in all six of the College Football Playoff Polls, and spent the last five weeks of the season at No. 1 in the Associated Press Poll and the last four at the top in the USA Today Coaches Poll.
Clemson went 8-0 in an ACC football season for the first time. The league moved to an eight-game schedule in 1992 and no Tiger team had won more than seven games in any one season prior to 2015.
The Tigers had a record 17 players earn All-ACC honors, while four freshmen were named Freshman All-Americans. Six players earned All-American status, including three as First-Team All-Americans.
Quarterback Deshaun Watson became the first quarterback in Clemson history to earn Consensus First-Team All-American honors, while also becoming the first signal caller in the program’s history to win a national award as he won the Davey O’Brien Award and the Manning Award as the nation’s best quarterback.
Watson also won the Archie Griffin Award as the nation’s best player, and became the first Heisman Trophy Finalist in Clemson history. He was also the ACC Player of the Year and won MVP honors in the ACC Championship Game and in the Orange Bowl.
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was named the National Coach of the Year by nine services or clubs, while both the media and the coaches honored him as the ACC Coach of the Year as well.
On offense, Clemson led the ACC in total offense, passing offense and first downs, while finishing second in scoring offense. The defense ranked 10th nationally in yards allowed and led the country in tackles for loss and third down defense.
In all, nine Clemson players were selected in the NFL Draft this past April, the second most in the country, and the most ever for the program in a seven-round NFL Draft.
The Tigers won everything, but one thing – the national championship. And that is why they are ranked as the second greatest Clemson team of all time instead of as the first.
“We played 15 games and lost the last one. We were 14-0. We were almost perfect and we let it slip out of our hands,” Clemson linebacker Ben Boulware said.
Clemson will be one of the favorites to make it make to the College Football Playoffs this year, but is that enough? Is winning a second straight ACC Championship enough? Is making it to the CFB Playoffs good enough? Is just making it to the National Title Game, again, enough?
“We didn’t win the game. We finished with some regrets. We want to finish with no regrets,” Swinney said.
But to finish with no regrets, the Tigers first have to start with some. In the 49 previous times Clemson entered a fourth quarter prior to last January’s title game against Alabama, the Tigers had not lost under Swinney’s direction. It also marked the first time in the program’s history it lost a game when gaining 500 or more yards in a game.
“It is definitely motivation. We have a nice chip on our shoulder,” Boulware said.
–Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports