Dabo Swinney has coached 229 games during his Clemson career, but even he admitted on Tuesday that Saturday’s struggle felt familiar.
“I mean, I feel like I’m living 2016 all over again,” Swinney said. “In fact I went back and looked at my notes from the Troy game in 2016…and it was like I could have just walked into the team meeting with the same comments. Different reasons, but same comments.”
Like 2025, 2016 began with Clemson in the AP Poll’s top four and the ACC title favorite. It also began with uneven play against an SEC team named the Tigers. Clemson escaped Auburn 19-13 at Jordan-Hare Stadium nine years ago, a game Swinney remembers for Wayne Gallman inexplicably stepping out of bounds in the final minute. Auburn’s hail mary fell incomplete, and the eventual national champions slipped by.
Next week brought what many expected to be a breather on the schedule, the Troy Trojans. Two Deshaun Watson interceptions and a mere six-point victory later, and questions began swirling around the ACC’s top program.
“We had 11 drops in our first two games,” Swinney recalled. “Everybody’s beating Deshaun up. He’s terrible. He thinks he’s the Heisman. He’s this and that.”
Flash-forward to now, and it’s Cade Klubnik in the spotlight as the Tigers’ signal-caller. After garnering praise from seemingly all angles in the preseason, criticism for the senior’s play has been heaped on by many.
Swinney hasn’t shied from pointing out his quarterback’s flaws. “He’s been too much of a factor with his legs,” he said on Tuesday. “He’s scrambled where he doesn’t need to scramble. That’s where he’s got to get better…There’s a couple of plays where he’s running out of the pocket for no reason.”
The loss of star wideout Antonio Williams has been a factor in Clemson’s offensive struggles. With just five snaps played through two games (all against LSU), the Tigers have lacked consistency in the passing game.
“He’s our best player,” Swinney lamented about Williams. “Seasoned, crafty, smart. It certainly doesn’t help us that he’s not out there.”
Despite the early-season adversity, Clemson’s head man sees parallels between his first title-winning squad and this one. He compared the weight of expectations that each team had to manage, despite being overwhelmed by them.
“That was the first time that group had all the rat poison,” he said. “This group hadn’t had that before. They’ve just had the ‘you suck’ poison. And some of them haven’t managed it well, obviously.”
The 2016 Tigers steadied the ship on the way to ACC and national titles. Swinney still believes that the same potential exists with the 2025 group. He just wants them to compete in the proper manner.
“I’ve won a lot of games where we played like crap,” Swinney said. “I’ve lost some where we played really good…[At the end of the day], it’s about how you play the game.”
