Clemson HC Dabo Swinney Has Clearly Adjusted His Expectations

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The Clemson Tigers were hammered by the Miami Hurricanes, 41-13, this past Saturday. The score indicated a rout, but this wasn't quite a bad as the season opener against LSU.

Regardless, Clemson lost by four touchdowns, which is not something any of us are accustomed to seeing in the Dabo Swinney era.

Well, until this year.

This marks the Tigers' second blowout defeat of the campaign, as they fell 51-10 in Baton Rouge back in Week 1.

However, Swinney is still finding silver linings.

After the loss to Miami, Swinney said that he felt Clemson did some things well and that the final score was not necessarily indicative of how things played out.

I actually do agree with Swinney in that regard. But the most notable part about this is how Swinney has adjusted his expectations.

In previous years, such a loss would be wholly unacceptable, and Swinney would make sure everyone knew it. But now, in this era of Clemson football, the goal posts have been moved.

It's understandable given how far the Tigers have fallen as a program in recent years, but that doesn't make it any less jarring.

There was a time when Clemson did to teams exactly what Miami did to the Tigers in Week 5. For a while, Clemson ruled college football, and Swinney appeared to be on an all-time great trajectory.

That wasn't even that long ago, either. Between 2015 and 2019, the Tigers made it to four National Championship Games and won two of them. They also made the College Football Playoff as recently as two years ago.

But Clemson has not won a playoff game since 2021, and it's clear just from a talent perspective that the Tigers are not where they once were. Not even close.

It's a depressing reality for Clemson fans, but it's the truth, and it seems as if Swinney has absolutely accepted it.

Why else would the two-time national champion be okay with a 28-point loss? He knows that times have changed and that the Tigers have reached a point where moral victories have painfully become a thing.

Right now, Clemson might not even be a top-five team within its own conference, which tells you just how much the Tigers have plummeted.

Clemson doesn't have a single ranked opponent on its schedule the rest of the way, so an eight or nine-win season is certainly a possibility. But I'm not sure anyone — not even Swinney — is confident that can actually happen.

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