The Clemson Tigers ranked 23rd in the first College Football Playoff rankings. This low spot is unusual for Dabo Swinney and the Tigers, who’ve had a habit of contending for the playoff’s top spots over the last decade. But the program isn’t what it used to be, and that’s been clear for the previous few seasons. Clemson began the year with a dispiriting loss against Georgia and then ate another to Louisville.
Are the days of Clemson contending over? ESPN’s Pete Thamel argues, yes, they are.
Thamel argued Friday that he didn’t see how they could make a run at the newly expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
“They, quite frankly, Steve just mentioned, don’t deserve to be ranked in the playoffs,” he said via On3. “They just haven’t beaten anybody right now, and it’s this team that’s stuck in this upper-middle-class nether world, where they’re not good enough to really be competing to the standard Dabo set early in his career there.”
The Tigers are indeed caught between a rock and a hard place right now. The ACC has gotten a bit stiffer, with Pitt rising and SMU making a run in its first year in the conference. Clemson has seen its days among the elite come falling, and they haven’t kept up with the competition.
Clemson will play Pitt in a pivotal ACC game that could decide the rest of both teams’ seasons.
[On3]
