A national outlet ranked the 2018 Clemson national championship team on its list of the 25 greatest college football teams of all time.

The 2018 Tigers are ranked as the eighth-best team ever by Sports Illustrated.

Clemson’s 2018 national title team became the first major college football team in the modern era (and the first since Penn in 1897) to finish a season with a 15-0 record.

On the Sports Illustrated list, 2018 Clemson is placed among the top undefeated squads, sitting behind teams including the 2001 Miami Hurricanes (No. 1), 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers (No. 2), 2019 LSU Tigers (No. 3), 1972 USC Trojans (No. 4), 1971 Nebraska Cornhuskers (No. 5), 1945 Army Cadets (No. 6) and 2004 USC (No. 7).

The Tigers obliterated Alabama, 44–16, in the College Football Playoff National Championship game at the end of the 2018 season.

For the season, Trevor Lawrence passed for 3,280 yards and 30 touchdowns with just four interceptions, becoming the first freshman starting quarterback to lead his team to a national title since Oklahoma’s Jamelle Holieway in 1985. Lawrence had elite weapons at his disposal like Justyn Ross, Tee Higgins, Amari Rodgers and Hunter Renfrow, while Travis Etienne led a prolific rushing attack.

Anchored by future top draft picks on the defensive line, Clemson led the country in scoring defense (13.1 points per game allowed).

Clemson won 13 of its 15 games by 20 or more points. The Tigers won their 15 games by an average margin of 31.1 points per game, the best in school history. They became the first school in ACC history to beat two conference foes by 60 or more points in the same year. They were also 3-0 against the SEC and took down Notre Dame along the way, too, with three of those wins being by 21 or more points.

In all, Clemson took down seven undefeated teams in 2018. Notre Dame was 12-0 before the Tigers beat them, while Alabama was 14-0.

Here’s what Sports Illustrated’s Tim Capurso wrote about the 2018 Clemson team:

Almost no one in the history of college football can say that they gave the legendary Nick Saban trouble. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney can make that claim. While younger fans might not know it by the state of the Tigers program today, Swinney was once a legitimate thorn in Saban’s side, right smack in the heart of the 2010s no less, when Alabama was at the peak of its dynastic powers. 

And there’s no team that proves this point better than the 2018 Clemson Tigers. The season began with an early roll of the dice: Swinney, after opening the year 2–0 with a two-pronged approach at quarterback, decided to start former No. 2 recruit and freshman Trevor Lawrence over incumbent Kelly Bryant, who had led the Tigers to the College Football Playoff the previous year. 

Swinney was betting that one of the most prized recruits in the nation would raise the Tigers’ ceiling come playoff time—and boy was he right. Just a year after Bryant was flummoxed by the Saban defense to the tune of 3.4 yards per pass attempt and two interceptions in a Sugar Bowl defeat, Lawrence rose to the occasion. 

Clemson played an easier regular-season schedule, so it was only fitting that the two winningest teams in terms of national championships in the poll era (dating back to 1936), Notre Dame and Alabama, stood in the way. What ensued was a CFP dominance that arguably hasn’t been equaled since. 

First, Lawrence, looking like a seasoned veteran, carved up the Fighting Irish defense, one of the best units in the country, to the tune of 327 yards passing and three touchdowns. The end result was a 30–3 laugher. 

Then, with a vaunted Crimson Tide defense looming once again, Lawrence and the Clemson offense put together a performance for the ages, scoring five touchdowns in a 44–16 romp over Saban’s squad. 

Even more impressive? A defense that went on to send nine of 11 starters to the NFL draft in 2019 and ’20 held a machine-like Alabama offense to just 16 points, forcing two turnovers, one of which was a 44-yard interception return for a touchdown by A.J. Terrell on the Crimson Tide’s first drive of the title game. 

If the 2017 national title game—a 35–31 win for the Tigers—proved that Alabama could bleed, the 2019 title game proved that the Tide could be knocked out. And once again, it was Swinney and Clemson who delivered the blow.