Dabo Swinney breaks down challenges of Clemson's 2025 schedule

Clemson is coming off a College Football Playoff appearance and returns starting quarterback Cade Klubnik. That has many picking the Tigers for a repeat appearance.

But there’s one major roadblock. Dabo Swinney explained.

“Man, we’ve got a tough schedule. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Swinney said on ACC PM after spring meetings. “We’re going to play LSU, they’re a really good football team. They’ll probably be a top-five team, one of the best quarterbacks in the country.”

That’s the opener. Win that one and things start to look a lot more favorable the rest of the way. But there are no gimmes.

One conversation with Swinney will assure you of that. He’s capable of going right down the schedule with praise for just about every opponent on the list.

“We play Troy, which is one of the best Group of Fives out there,” he said. “We’ve got to go to Georgia Tech, and I think Brent Key‘s done as good a job as anybody in the country. Huge battle. Syracuse, Fran Brown, what’d they win 10-plus games last year? He’s got them going.”

That’s the first four games of the season for Clemson. A bye will follow, breaking up the slate nicely. Then there are three more games before another bye.

“We’ve got the New England Patriots tour,” Swinney said with a laugh. “We go to North Carolina, to Boston College, back-to-back.”

The second half of the slate also features some serious challenges for Clemson. Swinney broke the back stretch down.

“You know the ‘Noles will be better and be back this year, we got them at home,” he said. “We lost to Louisville last year, we’ve got to go there. We lost to South Carolina, we’ve got to go there. Duke‘s a really good football team. So it’s a lot of work and we’ve got a lot of teams I’ve got a ton of respect for.”

All that said, Swinney is pretty confident his Clemson team can manage. Having a veteran quarterback like Klubnik helps a lot, but the rest of the roster has been developed too.

“I think we’re a team that’s got a chance, and I think any time you can compete in your league good things can come from that,” Swinney said. “We won the league eight out of the last 10 years and everything great has come from that. Because it’s created a lot of opportunity post-ACC play. So 17 teams, I think there’s going to be a bunch of teams that are good enough to win it. We’ll be one of them.”