Being ranked No. 1 in the country for the first time in the preseason poll means very little to Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney.

“I guess that means people think we have a good team coming back and it probably means we were a good team last year. I guess that is a pro,” he said after Monday’s practice. “I guess that beats not being ranked at all because everybody thinks you stink. I guess that is the pro.”

Clemson debuted at No. 1 in the Associated Press’ Preseason Top 25 Poll on Monday. The Tigers received 52 of the possible 62 first place votes, while totaling 1,540 points. Alabama received the other 10 first place slots and tallied 1,496 points.

The Tigers, the defending national champions, were also dubbed the top-ranked team in the Amway Coaches Poll earlier this month.

“The con (to being ranked No. 1) is just doesn’t matter,” Swinney said. “It is just a distraction for people to ask me questions about it because it just does not matter. Unless they bring us a trophy and tear the concreate out over there and put preseason champs up there, I don’t think we are going to do that. So, it just does not matter.

“That is probably the only con, it creates conversation that is unnecessary because it is not worth the paper it is printed on.”

Prior to Clemson’s No. 1 ranking this preseason, the program’s previous high had been second, the preseason rank held by both the 2016 and 2018 squads that each went on to earn the national championship.

Clemson’s preseason ranking this year marks the sixth Top 5 preseason ranking in the AP Poll in school history, including 1984 (No. 4), 1988 (4), 2016 (2), 2017 (5) and 2018 (2).

Clemson has now been ranked in the AP Top 25 in the preseason in eight consecutive years, matching the longest such stretch in school history. The Tigers garnered a Top 25 preseason ranking from the AP in eight consecutive years under three different head coaches across the 1987-’94 seasons.

“All you have to do if you want history is take the preseason polls and a lot of those teams in the top 10 don’t even finish in the top 25,” Swinney said. “So, I just have a perspective of it, and I have been on the other side of it where we haven’t been ranked in the top 25 and we finished ranked. I think we have a heck of streak going though.”

Under Swinney, Clemson has met or exceeded its preseason ranking in the final AP poll in each of the last eight seasons. Swinney’s eight-year streak is the longest by a coach in college football history. The only time in the last eight years that Clemson did not exceed its preseason AP ranking was 2013, when the Tigers both opened and concluded the year at No. 8.

Clemson will open the season on Aug. 29 at 8 p.m., against Georgia Tech. The game will be televised by the new ACC Network.

—Clemson Athletic Communications contributed to this story

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