Paul Finebaum clarifies his stance on Dabo Swinney's job status: 'I don't like his future at Clemson'

Clemson‘s disastrous start to the 2025 season continued last Saturday when it suffered a 34-21 defeat at the hands of Syracuse, which entered the game as 17-point underdogs. It marked the Orange’s first win over the Tigers since 2017.

This disappointing loss came just one week after Clemson fell to Georgia Tech 24-21, which snapped the Yellow Jacket’s nine-game losing streak to the Tigers. College football has changed in a major way, which has led to teams snapping six-plus game losing streaks to Clemson in back-to-back weeks. This marks a big shift in how the program is perceived.

ESPN‘s Paul Finebaum joined Thursday morning’s edition of ‘First Take‘, where he doubled down on his take that he does not like Swinney’s future at Clemson. He encouraged the two-time National Championship-winning coach to either jump to a different team or go the TV route in an effort to avoid becoming the next Mike Gundy.

“I wasn’t suggesting he get fired,” Finebaum said. “I was suggesting he do one of two things… he goes to another school while he still can or go into TV, which I think he would be very good at. But I don’t like his future at Clemson. The one thing I don’t want to happen here, because of Dabo’s greatness (he’s won two National Championships and played for the title multiple times), I don’t wanna see Dabo Swinney end his career five years from now looking like Mike Gundy did. Being pushed out the door after an amazing career. That’s really my major point here.”

Clemson’s success has dropped off in last four seasons

From 2012-2022, Clemson was among the top-three programs in the sport of college football. From 2014 (the first year of the College Football Playoff) to 2020, the Tigers were present in six of the seven events with National Championship wins in 2016 and 2018. Over the past four Playoffs, however, Clemson has made just one appearance with a First Round loss to Texas in 2024.

Clemson never finished lower than No. 3 in the season’s final College Football Playoff rankings from 2015-2020, but hasn’t finished higher than No. 7 in the last four seasons. This includes a No. 19 ranking in 2021, a No. 7 ranking in 2022, a No. 22 ranking in 2023 and a No. 16 ranking last season. Now, they’re trending in the direction of not even finishing ranked this season.

Good news could be on the horizon for the Tigers, however, as they have four consecutive games against non-ranked teams ahead on their schedule (North Carolina, Boston College, SMU and Duke). There is still time for them to turn their season around with a potential four-game winning streak, which would put them at 5-3 ahead of their clash with No. 8 Florida State on Nov. 8.