Top Clemson linebacker could’ve looked elsewhere. Why he stayed loyal to the Tigers
There was no grand announcement. Sammy Brown didn’t feel like he needed one.
Sure, Clemson was coming off its worst football season in 15 years, and that was going to generate all sorts of chatter about the Tigers’ top returning players.
Brown decided to shut down the conversations before they happened.
“I was pretty direct,” he said. “I knew I was going to be at Clemson.”
Speaking at last Thursday’s South Carolina Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where Brown was honored as the organization’s 2025 college player of the year, Clemson’s star linebacker didn’t elaborate on what sort of back-channelling was going on in December as the Tigers finished the season 7-6.
But it’s not hard to imagine opposing programs and agents prying, curious to see how firm Brown’s commitment to Clemson and coach Dabo Swinney was. In a world of unlimited transfers and one-year revenue-sharing contracts, it was only fair.
But Brown, Clemson’s starting middle linebacker and leading tackler, didn’t budge. Asked if there was any doubt he’d be back for his junior season, he grinned.
“No, not at all,” he told The State. “Not at all.”
Sammy Brown’s impressive start at Clemson
If Clemson’s going to bounce back this fall from its worst regular-season record since 2010, Brown will be a big reason why. The Tigers’ high-flying offense in 2024 and their season-long struggles in 2025 have overshadowed just how good he’s been.
Consider this: Brown is one of just 26 FBS players over the last 20 years to record at least five sacks and at least 10 tackles for loss as a freshman and a sophomore.
The former five-star recruit from Georgia was the ACC’s Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2024, and his 87 tackles were the most by a Tigers freshman since 1995.
He took another leap during an overall down year for Clemson’s defense in 2025, recording 106 total tackles (tied for the second in the ACC) and a career-best 13.5 tackles for loss for Tom Allen’s defense while starting every game.
He’s an iron man who played a team-high 734 defensive snaps, a weight room standout and a reigning Academic All-American – true to form, Brown, a biology major, was walking out of an organic chemistry lab when he got the phone call informing him he was the SC Football Hall of Fame’s college player of the year.
Brown “might be the best player we’ve got,” Swinney said in March, which is high praise for a roster also featuring Will Heldt, Bryant Wesco Jr. and T.J. Moore.
Being recognized as the state’s best college football player comes with mixed emotions, though. Brown emphasizes the award is a “blessing” at an individual level. But his lasting impression of the 2025 season isn’t his own excellent defensive stats.
It’s Clemson’s team-wide struggles.
Despite a preseason No. 4 AP ranking, the Tigers lost three of their first four and five of their first eight games, putting a 26-year bowl eligibility streak in legitimate doubt. Clemson was booed off its own field multiple times at home, where the team logged its first losing record at Memorial Stadium (3-4) since 1998.
“We didn’t have the result that we wanted,” Brown said. “But I just feel like that gives me motivation for next year: To come back harder and do a little bit more.”
Turning a 2025 flop into 2026 success
After Clemson’s season-ending loss to Penn State in the Pinstripe Bowl, Brown gave a candid postgame interview about Clemson’s season of “what ifs.”
“At the end of the day, you have to actually go out there and perform,” he said.
That honesty and leadership extended to the spring, when Brown quickly emerged as one of the top dogs for a Clemson defense that brought in a whopping 10 transfers after losing seven defensive starters to either the draft or the portal.
Without directly throwing anyone on Clemson’s 2025 roster under the bus, Swinney and Allen both made interesting comments this spring about the program needing to “purge” itself of entitlement after an extended run of success. Swinney said the reset has prompted a “great sense of urgency” from the entire program.
“It started in (winter) workouts and worked its way into spring ball,” Brown said. “I feel like we were really able to re-establish the standard and show the new guys and the freshmen and transfers and everybody else: ‘This is how we’re going to do it.’ And I think we’ve taken a big step toward doing that.”
Clemson’s new-look roster, which also features a new offensive coordinator, new support staffers and a new strength and conditioning coach, will be tested immediately: The Tigers open the 2026 season at LSU on Saturday, Sept. 5.
Brown said he’s ready to tackle the challenge at the only program he has eyes for.
“There’s just something different about Clemson,” he said. “The culture, when you’re in the facility, when you’re on campus. ... I feel like it’s God’s decision that I was here, and I feel like it’s God’s decision that I’m gonna stay here.”
