Preseason Hype: How Clemson's season can fall short in 2025

The College Football Playoff is a familiar place for Clemson under Dabo Swinney. Since the inception of the CFP in 2014, the Tigers have the second-most appearances of any team (7) and tied for the second-most championships with two.

They’re a preseason favorite to make it back this year, coming off of an ACC Championship that earned them an automatic bid to the first 12-team CFP this past season. College football analyst Josh Pate is also among the many believers in Clemson.

He pointed to the return of quarterback Cade Klubnik (and 16 total starters) as well as the addition of defensive coordinator Tom Allen as big reasons why. On paper, it all looks good, but we know how often preseason expectations can fall short. Pate doesn’t see that happening with the Tigers, though, unless they are to get a bad case of the injury bug.

“One of the popular takes is that Clemson is a College Football Playoff title contender,” Pate said on Josh Pate’s College Football Show. “I think they are, partly because they built toward this year. They’ve got a ton of proven returning experience. I think they addressed some of the neck-up issues defensively. There was an attitude they didn’t play with last year that I think they will with the addition of Tom Allen. No question at quarterback, no question at head coach, no question at offensive coordinator. I think the thing that would bite them is injury, because I don’t trust their depth to be championship caliber.”

Pate went on to cite Texas and Alabama as being teams that he’s watched in person whose depth does stand up. But he isn’t quite sure about the Tigers’ ability to weather a storm of injuries to some of their key players.

Obviously, the hope is that injury can be avoided, but the reality is that often isn’t the case in football. But if Clemson can be one of the lucky few teams that manages to keep their doctor’s visits to a minimum, it’s setting up for a big year.

“If Clemson’s relatively healthy and they don’t challenge for one — you get into the playoffs and anything can happen. So do they have to get to the semifinals for them to be considered a legitimate playoff title contender? Or is it just they made the playoff?” Pate wondered. “Like Oregon last year I thought was a legitimate title contender. They locked down the one-seed. They got blown out in the first round. So in retrospect, in November, would it have been wrong to call them a title contender? I don’t think so.

“So I think Clemson is in the conversation. But if they’re not, it’ll probably be because injury bit them.”