(The sixth of 12 ACC team previews)
Longtime loyal readers will know of a fondness to invoke "Clemsonliness" --- a trait not entirely unique to Clemson football but nonetheless one the Tigers have come to personify in the last decade and a half.
Never as good as they should be in good times and rarely as bad as they could be in the worst of straits, Clemson seems permanently stuck in college football's upper-middle class. The Tigers are better off than a whole lot of ho-hum programs, recruit well, have great tradition and wonderful fans.
They also have not come close to consistently cracking the national elite.
Clemson has played all of eight games as a top-10 team in the 18 seasons since Florida State joined the ACC. Yet the Tigers have been ranked at some stage in all but four of them, and only once in the last dozen years did Clemson not play in a bowl game. Even then, a season-ending fracas with South Carolina in 2004 was to blame for the Tigers staying home.
This season is unlike two years ago, when Clemson was hyped as the greatest team to come through Death Valley since the national title team of 1981 and promptly stumbled thanks to a beleaguered offensive line. Nor is it like last year, when a new quarterback and a fairly new coach helped temper expectations for what was an increasingly mature team.
This is somewhere in the middle. Expectations are higher, if only because fans have tasted a measure of success in a ACC title game trip and see a division that can be had, if not with ease then certainly realistically. But Clemson is also down its top rusher (the inimitable C.J. Spiller), its top three receivers (Jacoby Ford and Spiller among them) and its return men (again, Ford and Spiller).
Oh, and the schedule's a brute.
No, if the Tigers go 7-5 this year, it won't be because of Clemsonliness. Most likely, it will be a confluence of unfortunate factors that probably shouldn't be held against coach Dabo Swinney. Not this season, anyway.
When we last saw them ...: The Tigers won six straight games in the middle of the season to clinch the Atlantic Division title. Then they lost to South Carolina. "Grumble, grumble," went the fans. Then they fell to Georgia Tech in the ACC title game despite a brilliant effort from Spiller. OK, that happens.
The punch to the stomach, though, was being relegated to the Music City Bowl --- a mid-tier option in the pecking order --- for a matchup with Kentucky. Clemson won as expected, snapping a three-game bowl skid, and could at least feel good about salvaging something modest after the back-to-back losses late. Too bad Spiller wouldn't be back for a return engagement the next fall.
Biggest question: Who the hell made this schedule (aside from the ACC, which is responsible for two-thirds of it)? Seriously, Clemson has the talent of a team that should win eight games. But just getting there will be quite the challenge.
The Tigers visit Auburn in mid-September, draw a bye week, then get Miami at home and a depleted by still potentially feisty North Carolina bunch in Chapel Hill. Georgia Tech comes to Death Valley, but the Tigers have to play a pair of crucial division games (Boston College and Florida State) on the road. Then there's that season finale against South Carolina.
Even a team with Spiller, Ford and some of the stars from a year ago who have since moved on would struggle with that. Quarterback Kyle Parker will have to be better --- much better --- if Clemson is to match its nine-win total from a year ago. The schedule simply doesn't afford substantial margin for error.
Biggest asset: Offensive line. Four starters are back up front, including bookend tackles in Chris Hairston and Landon Walker. That should buy Parker time as he tries to adjust to a new batch of wideouts and --- more significantly --- create room for Andre Ellington and Jamie Harper to run.
It's basically the opposite of 2008, when the Tigers had a pair of high-profile backs in Spiller and James Davis and a quarterback in Cullen Harper coming off an absurdly good junior year but little established on the line. Better to have the line set and the skill positions in question, as Clemson learned that season. If the Tigers can get to nine wins, they'll have the fellas up front to thank.
Best case: The Tigers leads the ACC in turnovers forced again (they had 30 last year) thanks in part to safety DeAndre McDaniel, leading to favorable situations for Parker and the rest of the offense. Clemson establishes itself as a top-20 team, and despite some tough matchups contained in a brutal schedule, pretty much splits its games with marquee teams. A 9-3 team is good enough to make the ACC title game, where a rematch with Miami or Georgia Tech or possibly a showdown with Virginia Tech would stand in the way of Clemson's first BCS bid.
Worst case: Losses in the secondary make Clemson much more vulnerable to potent passers like Jacory Harris, Christian Ponder and Russell Wilson. The receiving corps never develops any consistency, leaving Ellington and Harper facing plenty of nine-man fronts. The unforgiving schedule gobbles up the Tigers, who throw in a puzzling loss (Maryland? at Wake Forest?) and dip to 6-6 in Swinney's second full year.
Where we'll see them in three months: Perhaps, for a change, in a predictable spot: 8-4 and ticketed to a decent mid-tier bowl game after an arduous season.
Swinney should have the confidence of his fanbase, as well as a flush bank account, after hauling home a division title a year later than everyone anticipated Clemson would make its first ACC championship game appearance. His leadership helped salvage a demoralized team in 2008 after Tommy Bowden was ousted, and he held things together last season after an inexplicable loss at Maryland.
Indeed, a big problem in recent years for the Tigers is digging an early hole. The '08 team was 3-4 and in grave danger of missing the postseason altogether. Last year, Clemson was 2-3 before its midseason surge.
Swinney hasn't committed Bowden's repeated cardinal sin of losing home games to unranked opponents while trotting out a ranked team. Bowden did that seven times, including his Death Valley finale against Maryland in 2008. Given the schedule, Swinney will be fortunate to even have the chance to stumble in such a manner.
The Auburn-Miami-North Carolina sequence --- followed after a visit from Maryland with Georgia Tech and Boston College back-to-back --- can kindly be described as harrowing. But snag two of those first three (and pair them with a couple anticipated blowouts) and Clemson could be 5-1 and at or near the top of the Atlantic Division in mid-October. That would fuel some hope.
Trying to accurately forecast Clemson's football fortune is often a fool's errand, a trip to a Bizarro world where nothing seems to make a whole lot of sense. On paper, the Tigers could wind up in El Paso or Charlotte for the holidays, and that's probably the most likely outcome. But no one should be surprised if Clemson's annual attempt to keep up with college football's upper-middle class Joneses is littered with surprises. It almost always is.
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