Clemson has been showered with praise this offseason, with the Tigers widely viewed as one of the best teams in college football entering the 2025 season – if not the nation’s No. 1 team.

But while there’s been a whole lot of love for Dabo Swinney’s squad heading into the upcoming campaign, former ESPN and current Fox Sports analyst Chris “The Bear” Fallica remains skeptical about all the hype surrounding the Tigers.

After saying recently that he’s “pumping the breaks on this Clemson love affair,” Fallica made some similar comments during a recent appearance on the See Ball Get Ball show with former ESPN analyst David Pollack.

“I think the love is a little bit unjustified as to where we are,” Fallica said of Clemson. “Like, they weren’t even thought of as being a playoff team last year until Miami blew a 21-point lead up at Syracuse last year. I know [Cade] Klubnik and the wide receivers are back, but we’re assuming that the freshman [Gideon Davidson] is going to be great. But, you look at what they did last year — you got blown out by an SEC team in the opener. Now, it helps that [the season opener] is in Clemson this year against LSU. But you lost at home to South Carolina. You got dominated by Louisville on your home field. You stole a game at Pitt that you had absolutely no business winning. Like, they were that close to being kind of, like, 8-4 last year and not even in the ACC title game.

“This year, you gotta go to Louisville, you gotta go to South Carolina, even though I don’t necessarily think South Carolina is a great team. I think BC is going to be better. You’ve got SMU still on that schedule. Georgia Tech is always a pain in the you know what to play. There are a lot of losable games there for Clemson. SMU kind of handed them 14 points in the ACC title game last year because of turnovers, and that was the story of their season – their ability to kind of create turnovers and score points off of them, Klubnik didn’t turn the ball over.”

Added Fallica: “I just think they’re being built up a little bit based on kind of stumbling into an ACC title [game] that they nearly weren’t in, and then they played Texas a lot closer in the College Football Playoff than I think people thought.”

Pollack is one media member that recently picked Clemson to win the national championship this season, with Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt being another that’s going with the Tigers to win it all this year.

But will the Tigers actually run the table in the ACC and then make their way through the College Football Playoff en route to their first national title since 2018?

Fallica isn’t ruling out the possibilities, though he’s clearly not all-aboard the Clemson hype train.

“Look, could they absolutely be the team that rips through the ACC? Maybe they’ll beat LSU by two touchdowns in the opener. Maybe they’ll go to Louisville and win. Maybe they’ll go to South Carolina and win. Maybe they’ll go to Georgia Tech and win. Maybe they’ll blow SMU out at home,” Fallica said.

“But I’m buyer beware, I think, with Clemson this year. I think they’re really good, but I don’t think they are, like, preseason No. 1, preseason No. 2 good like a lot of people think they are.”