- Looking back, Dabo Swinney’s bold prediction tells us the veteran Clemson coach had absolutely no feel for his team.
- Clemson looks like an also-ran, not a national championship contender.
- Brian Kelly pushes Billy Napier closer to the edge of a firing, then blows a fuse.
Dabo Swinney’s preseason quote needed a laugh track. It reads like satire in hindsight.
Swinney, in a summer interview with ESPN, predicted a 16-0 season in his program’s future.
Looking back, Swinney’s bold prediction tells us the veteran Clemson coach had absolutely no feel for his team. His Tigers turned in another clunky performance for their second loss in three games, this one a 24-21 defeat at upstart Georgia Tech, thriving under coach Brent Key and quarterback Haynes King.
Forget 16-0, and forget Clemson being a national championship contender. Swinney’s Tigers are on the fast track to also-ran status.
Swinney broke a cardinal rule of the preseason: Never, ever build up expectations to a level your team is not prepared to meet. Swinney would have been better off sticking to his little ol’ Clemson routine.
Because, many of us took his lofty assessment seriously and attached high expectations to this Clemson season. That wasn’t only because of Swinney’s big brag in the preseason. Clemson possessed a proven quarterback, a veteran roster and a premier defensive line – all the hallmarks of a national championship contender.
That makes it all the more galling that Clemson looks so average. Cade Klubnik continues to play like a quarterback mired in regression. His two turnovers factored into this latest loss.
‘Two heartbreaking losses, where we had a lead in the fourth quarter,’ Swinney said.
That’s one way of looking at it. Here’s another vantage point: Clemson has lost four of its last five games against Power Four opponents. It’s now been several years since Clemson ranked among the nation’s elite programs.
The Tigers got a lot of run out of their win against SMU in the ACC Championship, but, let’s face it, the Mustangs were not a playoff-caliber team, and the committee erred by admitting SMU into the bracket.
Clemson’s schedule will ease up for a few weeks, and there’s an avenue to the playoff through a conference championship, but that’s looking more and more far-fetched in a conference where Miami, Georgia Tech and Florida State have established themselves as frontrunners.
Swinney, perhaps realizing the error of his preseason assessment, begged the media after his team’s season-opening loss to LSU to revise their bullish assessment of Clemson.
‘Say we suck,’ Swinney pleaded.
Swinney’s comments amounted to a cry for help. He wanted to be able to play the little ol’ Clemson card again and use media criticism as a tool to rally his team.
Well, he won’t have to plead for criticism now, at least. It’s coming hot and heavy, not just from the media, but from a disgruntled fan base that got spoiled by the success Swinney delivered at the peak of his tenure and bought stock in Swinney’s sunshine pump before this season, only to have it go bust by mid-September.
‘I know there will be a ton of negativity,’ Swinney said after this loss, ‘but we can’t do anything about that.’
This season was supposed to provide vindication for Swinney. In this transfer era, he continues to build Clemson through a strategy of sign, retain and develop. Clemson’s lack of transfers contributed to it losing four games last season, tied for their most losses since 2011.
Clemson retained so much of its roster from last season that the Tigers seemed poised for a bounce-back, led by a bunch of seasoned players Swinney signed out of high school.
Clearly, Swinney believed in the possibilities.
The only vindication, though, is for the skeptics who never bought into Swinney’s preseason buoyancy.
Apparently, Swinney had no idea just how beatable his team is.
Here’s what else is on my mind after Week 3:
LSU defense goes off, then Brian Kelly goes off
No wonder Brian Kelly took up for embattled Florida coach Billy Napier before their rivalry game. Napier is the most beatable Gators coach since the 1940s. He’s exactly the type of coach you want your rival to employ.
LSU’s defense delivered a third straight gem in a 20-10 victory over Florida.
When the Gators opted to retain Napier last year, the silver lining was supposed to be that keeping the coach meant retaining the quarterback.
How’s that working out? LSU intercepted DJ Lagway five times, and Napier lost for the 21st time in 41 games. Napier, at this point, is just a seat warmer for Florida’s next coach.
Instead of enjoying a victory lap, Kelly launched into a postgame rant. When a reporter asked about LSU’s relative lack of offense, Kelly went bananas.
‘We won the game,’ Kelly said while his fuse blew. ‘I don’t know what you want. What do you want? You want us to win 70-0 against Florida to keep you happy?’
Maybe, try starting with with 24 points. LSU hasn’t reached that mark yet this season, but at least its defense looks dynamite, for the first time in several years.
Asked specifically about LSU’s quiet night in the run game, Kelly barked about the ‘ridiculous questions.’
‘You’re spoiled. You’re spoiled,’ Kelly screamed. ‘This is ridiculous, from a group of season reporters.’
Not really. Pretty basic questions, actually. Kelly could have answered the queries about the offense in any number of ways that didn’t involve an absurd rant.
On the other hand, Florida fans would go for a little more fire from their coach, and they’d definitely go for LSU’s 3-0 record and its dominant defense.
Brent Pry beats Billy Napier to a firing
Napier outlasted Brent Pry, at least.
Virginia Tech got trounced, 45-26, by Old Dominion to drop to 0-3. The Hokies fired Pry following that result. He went 16-24 in four seasons.
‘This team right now is the closest to the vision I have for Virginia Tech football,’ Pry said before the season.
His vision must have been a nightmare.
Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock sounded the alarm on the football program’s finances before the season. Not exactly the best sales pitch to prospective job candidates.
Virginia Tech joins UCLA with Power Four openings. The Bruins fired DeShaun Foster after their own 0-3 start.
Ty Simpson heating up at Alabama
Ty Simpson has helped Kalen DeBoer turn down the heat in Tuscaloosa. Alabama’s quarterback has looked awesome these past two weeks, and the Crimson Tide regained their mojo after an ugly showing against Florida State in their opener.
Simpson played to a level of near perfection in a 38-14 smashing of Wisconsin.
Alabama will have an open week before traveling to Georgia, and though Kirby Smart’s team is undefeated, his defense looked quite vulnerable while needing to fend off Tennessee, 44-41, in overtime.
Alabama, though, is just 2-5 in games played away from Bryant-Denny Stadium in DeBoer’s tenure.
Podcast host wins a date thanks to Vanderbilt
Apparently, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia promised to set up popular podcast host Theo Von on a date with his mom if the Commodores beat South Carolina.
Well, Vanderbilt smashed South Carolina, 31-7, to improve to 3-0.
There’s truly never been a better time in our history to be a podcast host.
Can Notre Dame go from 0-2 to 10-2?
Notre Dame snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory in a 41-40 home loss to Texas A&M.
Finally, the Irish have a quarterback, CJ Carr, who looks talented enough to pursue glory, but, in a cruel twist, their defense and fundamentals betrayed them.
Notre Dame botched an extra point after its final touchdown, turning what should have been a seven-point lead into a six-point lead and allowing Texas A&M to rally and win on an extra point.
The Irish also failed to secure what should have been a game-winning interception, two plays before Marcel Reed’s game-winning touchdown pass.
Notre Dame, even at 0-2, cannot be ruled out as a playoff contender. The Irish lost to Miami and Texas A&M by a combined total of four points, and their schedule now lightens up considerably. But, Notre Dame’s defense looks unrecognizable to the unit that powered the Irish to a national championship game appearance.
A road game against Arkansas and home game against Southern California are the trickiest games remaining. Would 10 straight victories be enough on the at-large résumé?
Or, Notre Dame could make the playoff by winning its conference championship. (Just kidding, folks!)
Three and out
1. A scene from the road: Hours after Tennessee’s overtime loss to Georgia, Vols fans gathered in a hotel lobby in Knoxville and read aloud the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of UCLA’s 35-10 loss to New Mexico.
The Vols squandered their chance to beat Kirby Smart, but they won the quarterback swap with UCLA. Nico Iamaleava ducked out on Tennessee in favor of a bad UCLA team, and he’s struggling, while the Vols’ Joey Aguilar threw for 371 yards and four touchdowns in the loss to Georgia. Tennessee stomached a painful overtime loss but dined on Iamaleava schadenfreude for dessert.
2. File this one under things I didn’t have on my Bingo card in the preseason: Texas fans booing Arch Manning amid his sloppy performance in a 27-10 win against UTEP.
3. After Texas A&M’s victory at Notre Dame, NBC play-by-play broadcaster Noah Eagle said of the Aggies: ‘They’ve announced to the nation, they’ve arrived!’
Easy now. This was a good win for Mike Elko in his second season, but Eagle’s comment reminded me of Joe Tessitore roaring that ‘Texas is back!’ after the Longhorns beat Notre Dame in 2016. As it turned out, Texas was not back. The Irish stunk that season.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
(This story was updated to change a video.)
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