Move over, Alabama? Clemson can be college football’s premier dynasty by beating LSU
Dabo Swinney has had no problem saying he doesn’t believe his Clemson program gets the credit it deserves nationally. While Swinney’s comments have become tiresome to some, the people who know the sport as well as anyone believe he’s right.
Consider these facts:
▪ No. 3 Clemson has won 29 consecutive games entering Monday’s national championship against No. 1 LSU. A year after becoming the first team in modern college football history to go 15-0, the Tigers of the ACC have a chance to do it again.
▪ Clemson is in the College Football Playoff for the fifth consecutive season, the national title game for the fourth time in five years and has a chance to become the first repeat national title winner since Alabama in 2011-12.
▪ The Tigers have the second-most wins in college football since 2011 with 111 — behind only Alabama (114) — and the most wins in the sport since 2015 with 69, three more than any other program.
If Clemson can finish with another perfect season and its third national title in four years, where does this run rank?
“To me it’s as great as anything we’ve ever seen,” ESPN’s Chris Fowler said. “I know that their conference hasn’t been as demanding as others in history for sure, but that’s just a ridiculous amount of postseason excellence, and it would put them right there with anything else. You’re just not supposed to be able to do that anymore.”
Clemson won its first national title under Swinney in 2016, beating a 14-0 Alabama team. Last year, Clemson knocked off 12-0 Notre Dame and 14-0 Alabama in the College Football Playoff. And the Tigers beat 13-0 Ohio State in this year’s semifinal. Up next is 14-0 LSU in a game that will be played in New Orleans, about 80 miles from LSU’s campus.
“You go back-to-back and the teams they’ve had to beat to keep that streak alive, for me it’s just crazy,” Fowler said. “I don’t know how many times it’ll be duplicated in the history of the sport.”
By Swinney’s own definition, Clemson has formed a dynasty.
“A dynasty? I guess a team that wins a lot. That’s the only thing I can think of,” Swinney said when asked for his definition for the word.
And no one is winning more than Clemson is.
In the last decade, the Tigers went 117-22, finishing tied for the second-most wins in the 2010s with Ohio State, behind only Alabama. Clemson had 30 more wins in the 2010s than it had in any other previous decade in school history.
“Transformative. Is that a word?” Swinney said of Clemson’s past 10 years. “We’ve transformed Clemson, and the next decade is the Roaring ‘20s, so I’m excited about — I heard those were great. Hopefully, we can relive those.”
Former Georgia coach Vince Dooley faced Clemson more than 20 times in his 25-year career with the Bulldogs, including in 1980 when Georgia won the national title and in 1981 win Clemson won its first.
The 87-year-old Dooley has continued to follow Clemson’s program since getting out of coaching in 1988 and is blown away by what Swinney has accomplished at Clemson.
To Dooley, the most impressive part of Clemson’s run is the consistent success the Tigers have enjoyed.
“We had some well-played games with them in the early ’80s, late ’70s,” Dooley said. “They won the national championship the year after we did. So it was an early indication that this could happen. Now it’s happening even more consistently now.
“It’s very difficult to get there in the first place; even more difficult to stay there. They have been able to do it. Only Alabama has been able to do it, those two, over the long haul.”
With a win Monday night, Clemson will pass Alabama as the premier program in college football, according to Fowler — if that hasn’t happened already.
“You can make an argument they’re already there. They’re already right next to Alabama,” Fowler said. “And if they win this game, I think they are the team right now. They are the team that everybody wants to look at.”
When is the Clemson LSU game?
Who: Clemson vs. LSU, national championship game
When: 8 p.m. Monday
Where: Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans
What TV channel: ESPN
Radio: 1400 AM in Columbia, 93.3 in Greenville, 730 AM in Charlotte (Don Munson, C.J. Spiller, Tim Bourret, Reggie Merriweather) ... See all the radio affiliates around the state here.
Stream: WatchESPN
Betting line: LSU by 5.5
