Clemson Tigers College Football Preview 2021: What Will Happen, Season Prediction
You know where you were when …
You know where you were when Clemson lost a football game under Dabo Swinney over the last few years, because it didn’t happen all that often, and it usually required something epic to do it.
The SEC-heads love to scream about how much easier Clemson has it playing in the ACC – and they’re right when it comes to the accumulated body shots the Tigers have to take compared to most top SEC teams – but you can’t fake College Football Playoff success and what it took to knock this program out.
Set The Clemson Tigers Regular Season Win Total At … 11
Trevor Lawrence was out and the defense was banged up in the overtime loss to Notre Dame in South Bend. The other loss in 2020 came to a win-or-die Ohio State program that seemed to spend every waking second obsessing over the previous season’s College Football Playoff loss to the Tigers.
You remember where you were for those two losses. One was to a fantastic Irish team, the other to a frothing-at-the-mouth Buckeye program that got an all-time gutty performance from Justin Fields.
Throw in the lone 2019 loss in the national championship against an LSU team that had one of the greatest seasons in college football history, and Clemson went 39-3 in the last four years.
The loss before all that came in the College Football Playoff to an Alabama team that went on to win the national title, and the loss before that was on a strange weeknight game at Syracuse after QB Kelly Bryant got hurt.
Before that, that previous loss was in 2016 to Pitt 43-42 in one of the best ACC games you’ll ever see, and before that, the previous loss was to Alabama in the 2015 season national title game.
Just to recap, seven losses in six years and almost all of them required a national championship-caliber team or a wild shootout or a dinged up ankle to happen.
So of course 2021 Clemson will keep it all going.
Okay, so there’s a huge problem if QB DJ Uiagalelei gets hurt, and the receiving corps could really use a healthy Justyn Ross, and the running game has to get going again, and …
With this schedule, ten wins is a mortal lock. There are ACC landmines against NC State, Pitt and Louisville on the road, and South Carolina might be pesky, but the only real worry is the opener against Georgia.
There’s no North Carolina, Miami, Virginia Tech or Virginia to face, and there’s no Notre Dame, either.
With yet another amazing team and this schedule, you’ll remember where you where when it plays in yet another College Football Playoff.
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– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– Clemson Football Schedule Analysis