Coming off a 7-6 season last year, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney gave a very simple answer when asked about his specific goals and expectations going into the upcoming season.

“I want to win more games,” Swinney said at Clemson’s media outing Tuesday.

Swinney admitted that this season, the Tigers may not reach college football’s mountaintop – where they resided after winning national titles in 2016 and 2018, as part of the program’s remarkable run of success from 2015-20, when they won six straight ACC titles and made six consecutive College Football Playoff appearances while playing for four national championships.

But regardless, Swinney wants to flip the trajectory of his program back in a positive direction after last year’s disappointing campaign that marked the second-worst record of Swinney’s tenure as the Tigers’ head coach.

“Just get the arrow pointed back where it needs to be,” Swinney said. “I don’t know if we’ll get all the way to the top of the mountain, but we need to get it pointed back in that direction.”

Though Swinney conceded Clemson may not get back to the top of the mountain this year, he remains confident the Tigers will eventually return to the pinnacle.

“We’ve been to the top many times around here, and we’re gonna take Clemson back to the top. That’s going to happen,” Swinney said. “Whether it happens this year, I don’t know. But my main objective is to make sure we get the arrow pointed back where it needs to be, and that we’re a tougher football team mentally. That’s been a big focus for us.”

With a roster full of NFL talent, Clemson was ranked No. 4 in the AP Poll going into the 2025 season and was widely expected to contend for a national title, only to start 1-3 and quickly drop out of the ACC title race and CFP conversation.

Swinney says the Tigers have turned the page on last year’s struggles and are fully focused on the 2026 season.

“We’re way past all that. That page is turned, man,” Swinney said. “I mean, it’s ’26. … We’ve long moved past last year. It’s all about this team. We’ve been rolling since January. … It’s not really anything to balance at this point. It’s all about ’26.”