2025 Football: Crunching Clemson’s Numbers to See How 7-5 Happened

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While No One Thing is to Blame, There are Clear Signs as to why 2025 Fell Short.

Now that the smoke has cleared from the 2025 season and Clemson knows its bowl destination, we have some time to look at why 2025 fell so far short of the lofty expectations this team collected prior to kicking off vs. LSU. Dabo Swinney and his coaching staff (which will no doubt be in some form of transition again prior to next season) will already have a good bead on why this team just didn’t live up to the hype and had to rally just to bowl eligibility. This is an attempt to point to a clear path that must be found if Clemson hopes to regain its status among the top 10 in the country and the best program in the moribund ACC.

DEFENSE

Tom Allen was brought in to fix the defense which had slipped badly in 2024 and experienced a general decline after 2021’s unit was among the best in college football during Brent Venables final season at the helm. Allen was able to correct the most glaring issue with Wes Goodwin’s units, which was overall tackling and stopping the run consistently. The 2025 defense improved its rushing yards given up from 160.6 to just 102.8, with yards per carry improved from 4.7 to 3.6. Clemson’s tackling rate and grades were much better as a general rule, highlighted most by handling LaNorris Sellers and the Gamecocks in Columbia.

The biggest loss from the 2024 unit on this side of the ball, undoubtably, was safety R.J. Mickens and the Tigers struggled mightily to get the safety position tightened up until very late in the year. Busted coverages from rampant communication problems as well as some general shortcomings in range and physicality led to giving up nearly 40 yards a game more in the air. Unlike Wes Goodwin’s units in 2022 and 2024 which struggled to ever get things repaired, Allen made changes to the secondary room oversight, moved Corian Gipson into the Tiger role, and generally got things much better after the Duke loss. Clemson fans can feel good about who is in charge on defense and now it will come down to how well the staff can plus some personnel holes with the transfer portal. Clemson will need at least one impact/starter level player at corner, safety, and defensive end at the minimum for 2026.

2024 Defensive yards per game 374.1; Rushing yards per game 160.6 (4.7); Passing yards per game 213.5; 35 sacks and 16 interceptions

2025 Defensive yards per game 353.3; Rushing yards per game 102.8 (3.6); Passing yards per game 250.5; 33 sacks and 9 interceptions

Clemson got to the quarterback about the same as a whole but didn’t produce interceptions as well. Clemson also got more sacks from different places, as T.J. Parker had 11 of the 35 total sacks in 2024. Will Heldt led the team this year with 7.5 of the 33 total.

I believe the Allen hire was a very good one but it remains to be seen how long it takes to get the personnel and staff to align as he would best want it to. We all should remember that Brent Venables faced some similar challenges, especially with the linebacker and cornerback positions, when he took over in 2012. By 2014 he had the best defense in college football. It is unfair to expect Allen to match the GOAT DC in school history, but it is definitely within reason that he can get Clemson into the top 20 defensively consistently.

OFFENSE

I would place the lion’s share of the blame for the Syracuse and Duke losses on the defense. Both of those losses also featured two of the worst special teams plays of the season. But the rest of the issues squarely fall on the Clemson offense. This unit returned everyone of significant consequence except for Phil Mafah and Jake Briningstool yet fell off in every category, especially rushing the football and scoring.

Brent Venables had the 2012 offense to help him work through the growing pains of his new system, but Tom Allen was rarely afforded the same level of insurance. This is why there is so much scrutiny around whether or not Dabo Swinney will move on from Garrett Riley (or Riley moves on from Clemson). It feels unlikely any of the position coaches will be replaced on this side of the ball, but we will have to see how things shake out. One thing is for sure, Clemson needs a significant boost on this side of the ball to get back to real contention.

Clemson’s running game was largely abysmal during 2025. Adam Randall provided about all anyone could realistically hope for considering he converted from WR for the playoff preparation last year and in the spring. Gideon Davidson eventually began to provide a steady backup after the second open date, but the Tigers had way too many games where the run game was abandoned or failed in critical short yardage moments. The QB run game was a big boost to the 2024 offense, but was mostly a non-factor for the Tigers in 2025. Was this the scheme? Was this the OL? Was this Klubnik injuries? The truth lies somewhere in the middle but has to be strongly addressed for 2026 and beyond.

Perhaps the staff had hope that Jay Haynes would recover enough to provide some depth this season back when they could have targeted an experienced back in the transfer portal. It is hard to know, but they certainly suffered from not having a second back they could truly trust until the back half of the season. Adam Randall was bound to experience some growing pains at times, which was seen early on when he missed a blitz pickup vs. LSU that led to a sack (and subsequently appeared to spook Cade that night). Garrett Riley abandoned the run completely during the second half of that game, and the Tigers failed to score, blew the lead, and lost that pivotal tone setter to start things off. Bottom line is that Clemson cannot afford to go into games like that without full trust in at least one running back. It is hard to know how much damage that first game did to the mindset of the entire offensive room when Riley appeared to send the message “I don’t think we can run the ball at all,” with his play calls.

Clemson’s advantages at WR took longer to really emerge than anticipated. Antonio Williams going down hurt early in the LSU game certainly contributed to that. Neither Bryant Wesco nor T.J. Moore played particularly well that night, and Tyler Brown seemed to become invisible when he was seen running open on multiple occasions that evening. Riley was thoroughly out-schemed by LSU’s Blake Baker to boot. It was the third opening game in a row where Riley’s offense had major issues scoring points and not appearing ready for the moment. This time hurt the worst considering the game was in Death Valley and he had veterans up front and behind center.

While Riley doesn’t appear to have the same issues commanding the room that Wes Goodwin had, it is also noteworthy that it has so frequently taken time for the offense to seem to figure out what it really needs to do to be effective. The marriage just hasn’t worked like most felt it would.

The Clemson OL actually improved as a pass protection unit from 2024 to 2025. Blake Miller in particular was very good and earned that first team ALL-ACC designation. Sacks were down even with the team having to play from behind in about half the games. Injuries were a factor as they were the prior season. 2022 was the last year Clemson had a good run of health and could maintain the starting five up front. Ultimately, you could argue that only Miller and Walker Parks (when he was able to play) were playing at a higher level than the previous season. Everyone else was either about the same or a notch lower. This will be a very interesting position group to watch heading into next season as the portal has to be a factor considering the loss of so many veteran players. Elyjah Thurmon was not particularly great even before he got hurt (again) after showing tremendous promise as a freshman. Hopefully he will recover and take a big step forward and Brayden Jacobs won’t experience a sophomore slump. A great running game requires a mindset and I’m needing to see that mindset get re-established from the coordinator on down in 2026.

Clemson needs to also figure out how to get more out of the QB run game. I don’t subscribe to 15+ carries from a QB as a general approach because you are extremely likely to lose that player to injury, but a QB being able to keep a play alive, convert a few third downs with his legs, and be a threat in the red zone and short yardage is paramount to winning a championship. All of Clemson’s title teams had this element.

2024 Offensive yards per game 451.9; Rush YPG 173.4 (5.1); Pass YPG 278.5; 7 interceptions; 44% 3rd Down; 57% 4th Down

2025 Offensive yards per game 405.3; Rush YPG 131.3 (4.1); Pass YPG 274; 7 interceptions; 34% 3rd Down; 58% 4th Down

We saw overall defensive improvement except for pass yards per game allowed. Scoring defense was about a field goal better, rushing defense was much better, and sacks/third down defense were about the same.

Offense was a much different story, and much more hard to defend considering it was returning the bulk of its production and not changing systems. Some of the defensive situation was “do we have a good enough player there?”. The offense doesn’t have that excuse.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I think the staff would have liked to have brought in a portal safety and a portal running back if they had to admit it. The Tiger position was not adequately manned until they converted Gipson from corner to take over there, which took some time. Safety depth was razor thin behind Khalil Barnes and Ricardo Jones, and Barnes in particular seemed to struggle to regain in freshman form once he returned from injury. Hanafin had a promising start but faded as the season went along (except for special teams duty). It was non-existent behind those three in reality. Now we will see if those three will be back next year and even if they all are, there has to be better depth. Polo Anderson is a great signee but the incoming safety class lost 2 commits on top of losing its top commit the year before.

But this season would have looked a lot more like 2012 than 2010 had the offense improved or even stayed close to what it was in 2024 in ppg, ypg, and rushing. Third down conversion rate dropped 10-percentage points as well. This is why it will be hard to see Riley’s system staying status quo in 2026.

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