Clemson has gone 15 years with at least one 10-plus win season in consecutive years, as the Tigers have not had back-to-back seasons under 10 wins since 2009-10.

Clemson enjoyed 12 straight 10-plus-win seasons from 2011-22 – the third-longest streak in FBS history, alongside Nick Saban-era Alabama squads and Bobby Bowden-era Florida State teams.

That 10-win streak concluded in 2023 when the Tigers went 9-4, but Clemson instantly bounced back to win 10 games the following season while winning the ACC Championship and making the College Football Playoff.

Now, the Tigers are looking to bounce back once again this year, after finishing the 2025 campaign with a 7-6 record, the second-worst season in Dabo Swinney’s 17 full seasons as head coach. So, will Clemson maintain its 15-year streak of at least one 10-plus win season in consecutive years?

ESPN analyst Greg McElroy doesn’t think so. In an episode of his Always College Football podcast, McElroy predicted that Clemson will finish the upcoming season with under 10 wins.

“I think Clemson finishes under 10 wins again,” he said. “So that would be the first back-to-back sub-10s since ’09 and 2010. So here’s how I get there — it’s not that Dabo Swinney didn’t dodge it — he said it perfectly. Clemson really underachieved last year. That’s his phrase, that’s not mine. And here’s the detail that everybody quotes — Clemson tied a program record with nine draft picks off that 7-6 football team. Everybody used to say that the talent was fine, so Clemson will be fine. So run it all the way forward, though — a 7-6 team that had nine draft picks, then those nine picks are gone, and the thing that actually went wrong is the thing that stayed. You don’t fix a year of underachieving by taking out your nine best players.”

Clemson’s challenging schedule is another reason for McElroy’s verdict that the Tigers won’t get to 10 victories.

“And you look at the schedule — they open at LSU, Week 1, Death Valley, Lane Kiffin’s debut in front of a crowd that’s waited six years for something really special to happen,” McElroy said. “Then Miami comes to Clemson on Oct. 3, and Miami just played for a national championship. That’s two playoff-caliber teams inside your first six games, one on the road with a reshaped roster.”

McElroy added that if his prediction proves wrong, it will be because “Dabo is still Dabo” and he underestimated a program history built on bounce-back situations. McElroy also pointed to the fact that Swinney utilized the transfer portal much more this offseason, bringing in double-digit transfers.

“Now the case for Clemson, and it’s not nothing, they did exactly this in 2024,” McElroy said. “They went 9-4, then 10 wins and an ACC title. And Swinney kind of broke his own tradition. He actually went to the portal for the first time. A man publicly reversing a position that he has defended for years. So my verdict is if they don’t get to 10, and if I’m wrong, it’s because Dabo is still Dabo, and I underestimated a program that has built a career out of this exact bounce-back situation.”