Dabo Swinney Will Be Assessed at Clemson at End of Season: Josh Pate
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The Good news for the Clemson Tigers: They have the record most people around the country would have thought they'd have after five games.
The bad news: Clemson's 3-2 record has proven the program is not where it used to be under head coach Dabo Swinney.
During the offseason, Swinney pointed to his past successes for why he believed Clemson would be good this fall. The Tigers were blown out in their opener 51-10 by LSU. Then, Clemson settled in, beating Georgia Southern, North Carolina, and California.
Saturday's 41-13 loss to the Miami Hurricanes felt a little unsettling for Clemson. For one, it was a home game for the Tigers. Two, the Hurricanes did to Clemson what Clemson used to do to other teams in the ACC.
Miami is the top team in the ACC. Clemson is still trying to figure out what it is this season.
During the "Josh Pate's College Football Show" on Sunday, the host noted that the "situation" at Clemson with Swinney would be "assessed" at the end of the season.
It's unclear if that could mean the Tigers would fire a coach that has won two national championships. The prudent thing to do might be to hire a strong general manager, who is in charge of the roster, with Swinney coaching what presumably would be a better roster that buys into the transfer portal.
Pate also noted that while Clemson was destroyed by LSU and Miami, the rest of the schedule gets easier for the Tigers. They currently have no ranked opponents on the schedule for the rest of the season.
Clemson has yet to play Charleston Southern, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Syracuse, Georgia Tech, Duke, and South Carolina.
It's not inconceivable to think that Clemson could go undefeated against that schedule and make a run at the ACC Championship Game, only to get blown out again.
Whether that's the new standard for Clemson or not remains to be seen.
Through the first five games, the Tigers do not look like a legit CFP contender. Swinney, tied for the sixth-highest salary in college football, is paid like a coach who should be making the 12-team CFP nearly every year.
Maybe Swinney can convince Clemson that quarterback Tait Reynolds can get the Tigers to the CFP next season. At the same point, there were a lot of other reasons on the roster that Clemson couldn't make it a competitive game at home against Miami.
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