Clemson’s football program won so much for more than a decade that it felt like a step back when the Tigers didn’t reach 10 wins two years ago in the first of back-to-back four-loss seasons.
Still, the Tigers are the reigning Atlantic Coast Conference champions and coming off a trip to the first 12-team edition of the College Football Playoff. Experience from that run is part of why the Tigers are the runaway preseason pick to finish atop the ACC again.
“Experience, as they say, doesn’t come at a discount,” said coach Dabo Swinney, whose team was No. 4 in the preseason AP Top 25 college football poll released Monday, behind top-ranked Texas of the Southeastern Conference, and No. 2 Penn State and No. 3 Penn State of the Big Ten.
Clemson won at least 10 games from 2011-2022, a run that included two national championships and eight ACC titles, before a nine-win year in 2023. The Tigers (10-4) beat ACC newcomer SMU in last year’s league title game.
“I think our mentality is, man, we’re keeping our head down, just kind of keeping it low,” said quarterback Cade Klubnik, the preseason ACC player of the year.
Clemson returns four AP All-ACC picks from last year, including first-team offensive lineman Blake Miller and two defensive linemen (T.J. Parker, Peter Woods) ranked in the top three among returners at their position nationally by Pro Football Focus.
Overall, Clemson held 11 of 27 spots on the preseason All-ACC team. No other team held more than three.
The ACC has two other teams ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 with No. 10 Miami and No. 16 SMU.
Miami was the league’s highest-ranked team much of last year, though the Hurricanes missed the ACC title game after losing at Syracuse. They brought in Georgia transfer quarterback Carson Beck as the successor to No. 1 NFL draft pick Cam Ward.
The Mustangs have back-to-back 11-win seasons under Rhett Lashlee, who led SMU to an 8-0 league record in its first ACC season. SMU returns quarterback Kevin Jennings (28 total touchdowns last year), and AP All-ACC picks in offensive lineman Logan Parr, safety Isaiah Nwokobia and kicker Collin Rogers.
Florida State entered last season as the reigning ACC champion and preseason favorite, then went 2-10. Coach Mike Norvell’s offseason included hiring two coordinators, notably former Auburn and UCF head coach Gus Malzahn for the offense.
“When you come to Florida State, you’d better embrace the highest of expectations, because it’s what I have, it’s what our program has,” Norvell said.
Three new coaches arrive in North Carolina’s Bill Belichick, Wake Forest’s Jake Dickert and Stanford’s Frank Reich.
Belichick led the NFL’s New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles, but this is his first college season, and the school is betting on the 73-year-old to elevate its football profile after moving on from Mack Brown.
Dickert left Washington State for Wake Forest after Dave Clawson unexpectedly stepped down after the season.
Reich, who joins Belichick and Boston College’s Bill O’Brien as the ACC’s national-high three former NFL head coaches, is an interim coach after the spring firing of Troy Taylor due to off-field concerns.
Sixth-ranked Notre Dame has six games against ACC teams as part of its annual scheduling partnership with the league, with the powerful football independent being a league member of all other ACC sports. Those don’t count in the league standings but certainly have CFP implications for last year’s national runner-up.
The biggest comes with an opening trip to Miami (Aug. 31), along with visits to Boston College (Nov. 1), Pittsburgh (Nov. 15) and Stanford (Nov. 29). The home games for the Fighting Irish against ACC opponents come against N.C. State (Oct. 11) and Syracuse (Nov. 22).