Though accessible via desktop, this page is best viewed on mobile operating systems.
From 2014-23, Clemson cemented itself as one of the College Football Playoff’s powerhouses of the tournament’s inaugural decade. In the 10-year history of the four-team format prior to 2024, only 15 programs earned at least one College Football Playoff berth, and Clemson ranked second in CFP berths, CFP title game appearances, total CFP wins and CFP titles.
Clemson returned to the College Football Playoff in 2024 in the format’s first year of expansion to 12 teams and is one berth shy of Alabama (eight) for the most in history.
With a No. 16 ranking in the final College Football Playoff rankings in 2024, Clemson remained one of three programs (alongside Alabama and Ohio State) to finish in the CFP Top 25 in every year since the tournament’s inception.
Among the 21 programs ever to qualify for the College Football Playoff from 2014-24, Clemson is one of only seven to hold a positive point differential in CFP play. Clemson has also accounted for three of the nine largest victories by point differential in CFP history.
Clemson’s six-year streak of College Football Playoff berths from 2015-20 remains the longest streak in the format’s history.
Clemson has a 161-32 record since 2011 and in 2023 became the second program to reach 150 wins in that span.
Alabama and Clemson rank No. 1 and 2 in the country in wins since 2015, with the two teams combining for five national championships in that time frame.
Clemson’s lofty perch in that ranking reflects not only its dominance against middle- and lower-tier opponents, but also its success in matchups with other premier programs. Among current power conference teams, 36 different programs recorded at least 100 wins from 2011-24. Clemson has played 16 of those 36 programs since 2011 and is 66-24 (.733) in those contests and is .500 or better against 14 of the 16 teams.
There have been 21 seasons of 14 or more wins since the NCAA split Division I in 1978. Clemson accounts for four of those 14-win seasons, matching Alabama for the most 14-win seasons in that span.
Though Clemson’s streak of 12 consecutive 10-win seasons concluded in 2023, Clemson won each of its final five games of the 2023 season to conclude the year at 9-4. A year later, Clemson posted its 14th consecutive season with nine or more wins in 2024, tying for the third-longest streak in major college football history.
Of the now 136 active FBS schools, only six programs have won at least six games at the FBS level in every year of the College Football Playoff era. That number dips to four when pushing the total to seven wins and to two when dropping it to nine wins.
Before Clemson’s 10-win streak concluded in 2023, Clemson’s 12 consecutive 10-win seasons from 2011-22 were the third-longest streak in FBS history, alongside Saban-era Alabama squads and Bowden-era Florida State teams.
In 2024, Clemson became the 13th program among current power conference programs ever to record 20 seasons with 10 or more wins all-time.
Of Clemson’s 20 all-time seasons with 10 or more wins, 13 have come in the last 14 years under Dabo Swinney. Clemson’s 13 seasons with double-digit wins are tied for the most in that span.
With a resounding conference win against NC State in 2024, Clemson became the 14th FBS program — and first ACC member — ever to reach 800 all-time victories. That year, Clemson moved past Auburn into sole possession of 13th place all-time.
Clemson introduced its iconic Tiger Paw logo on July 21, 1970. Since it was introduced, Clemson ranks 13th nationally in wins and tied for seventh in national championships.
In the 2025 offseason, Pick Six Previews examined the winningest teams over various time horizons. Clemson is one of only six schools to rank among the 15 best in wins in each of those time spans alongside Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State.
Between ACC Championship Games, bowl games and College Football Playoff National Championship Games, Clemson has won at least one postseason game in each of the last 14 years, the longest streak in FBS history. Clemson extended that streak with its win in the 2024 ACC Championship Game.
The last time Clemson did not win at least one postseason game was in 2010, when Clemson lost in the Meineke Car Care Bowl after not qualifying for the ACC Championship Game.
Clemson has won eight of the last 10 ACC championships. Its eight conference titles are the most of any program nationally in that 10-year window.
In 2020, Clemson became the first program ever to win 20 ACC Championships. That year, Clemson became the first program in the conference championship game era to win six straight conference championship games. Clemson also became the first ACC program to win six consecutive outright titles, as Florida State had a streak of nine straight ACC titles, but that streak included two co-championships that prevented Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles from ever winning more than three straight titles outright.
Clemson’s 2022 ACC title was the program’s seventh in eight years, as the Tigers became the first team in an active power conference to win seven outright conference titles in an eight-year span since Alabama won eight SEC titles in nine seasons from 1971-79.
Including titles from its days as a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association and Southern Conference, Clemson has 28 conference championships overall, also the most of any current ACC school. Duke ranks second among the ACC’s current membership with 18 overall conference titles, including 11 Southern Conference titles and seven ACC titles.
The Tigers won the 1900, 1902 and 1903 SIAA Conference championships under John Heisman, then the 1906 SIAA title under Bob Williams. Clemson also won the 1940 and 1948 Southern Conference titles under Frank Howard. Howard won eight total conference titles, including two in the Southern Conference and six in the ACC. Swinney surpassed the legend with a win in the 2024 ACC Championship Game.
Clemson’s 28 conference titles all-time are tied for the 10th-most among active FBS programs.
Early in his head coaching tenure, Dabo Swinney laid out his belief to then-Clemson athletic director Terry Don Phillips that the Tigers needed to add tough non-conference challenges on top of their tests in ACC play to serve as a foundation for the program’s growth.
“I had a conversation with Terry Don and said, ‘Terry Don, I know we are not very good right now, but we need to play people because that is going to help me teach and help me develop the culture and the mindset that you have to have to win at the highest level,'” recounted Swinney. “I didn’t think we had that, and that’s what we committed to. That’s what we’ve done.”
That scheduling philosophy and culture change has resonated in the Clemson program, and since the start of Clemson’s streak of 14 consecutive seasons with nine or more wins in 2011, no team can claim more wins against power conference opponents than the Tigers.
Clemson’s national-best 134 power conference wins since 2011 include at least one victory against 27 different programs, including Wake Forest (14), Boston College (12), Georgia Tech (11), Syracuse (10), NC State (10), Florida State (9), South Carolina (8), Louisville (8), Virginia Tech (7), North Carolina (6), Virginia (4), Notre Dame (4), Auburn (4), Miami (Fla.) (4), Maryland (3), Ohio State (3), Pitt (3), Alabama (2), Texas A&M (2), Oklahoma (2), Duke (2), LSU (1), Georgia (1), Iowa State (1), Kentucky (1), Stanford (1) and SMU (1).
College Football Hall of Famer Frank Howard, known as “The Bashful Baron of Barlow Bend,” compiled a 165-118-12 record in 30 seasons at Clemson from 1940-69.
With a 31-23 upset of No. 12 Notre Dame in 2023, Dabo Swinney earned his 166th career victory as Clemson’s head coach, surpassing Howard to become Clemson’s all-time winningest coach. Swinney accomplished the feat in his 209th career game.
With a 29-13 win against Florida State in October 2024, Dabo Swinney earned his 174th career victory to pass his friend and mentor (and College Football Hall of Famer) Bobby Bowden for the most career head coaching victories as a member of the ACC. Swinney ranks atop conference history in both total wins and career winning percentage.
In 2023, Swinney became the first head coach ever to lead an ACC team in 20 career bowl games. His win in the 2023 Gator Bowl was his 12th career bowl victory, passing Bobby Bowden’s conference record for bowl wins as head coach of an ACC team.
With his ninth conference title in 2024, Swinney passed College Football Hall of Famer Frank Howard in total conference championships. Howard led Clemson to eight conference titles, including two Southern Conference championships and six ACC crowns.
Swinney’s nine ACC titles are the second-most since the conference’s founding in 1953.
Swinney ranks second on the NCAA’s list of winningest active FBS head coaches by percentage with a minimum of 10 years of experience.
He also ranks seventh among active FBS head coaches in total wins and has coached fewer seasons than all of the coaches listed ahead of him. When removing wins at lower collegiate levels, Swinney ranks second among active coaches in wins as an FBS head coach.
Over the last decade-and-a-half, Clemson became a beacon of stability in the increasingly unstable environment of college football. Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney is in his 23rd overall season at Clemson in 2025, including his 17th full season as head coach (and his 18th including an interim stint in 2008).
From the start of Swinney’s first season as full-time head coach in 2009 through 2024, there were 498 head coaching tenures in the FBS (excluding those by interims) but only one such tenure at Clemson. Clemson is one of five schools with only one head coach in that span.
Clemson is the only school in the ACC with only one head coach since the start of the 2009 season, and among the 21 schools ever to qualify for the College Football Playoff, only Clemson has had only one head coach since 2009.
By date of initial hire (including interim hires), Swinney is the fifth-longest-tenured head coach in the FBS and the fourth-longest-tenured among power conference head coaches.
While the term “Final Four” may still be the linguistic property of college basketball, since the advent of the four-team College Football Playoff in 2014, Head Coach Dabo Swinney had Clemson among the sport’s final four teams six times from 2015-20, becoming the first coach to lead a team to six consecutive College Football Playoffs since the format’s institution in 2014.
The NCAA men’s college basketball tournament dates to 1939. In the history of that tournament, only John Wooden of UCLA (nine from 1967-75) and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke (five from 1988-92) coached teams to at least five consecutive Final Fours. With his sixth “Final Four” appearance in 2020, Swinney joined basketball’s Wooden as the only college football or men’s basketball coaches to take teams to six consecutive Final Fours in their respective sports.
Swinney is among only nine coaches in football and men’s basketball to record six career Final Four berths. He is one of only six with a winning record in Final Four games.
Swinney’s ability to place his team among the nation’s elite quartet has also been illustrated by the polls. Clemson finished first in the AP Poll in 2016 and 2018, second in 2015 and 2019, third in 2020 and fourth in 2017. Swinney became just the fourth coach to record at least six consecutive top four finishes since the AP Poll began in 1936, an exclusive list that also includes Florida State’s Bobby Bowden (13), USC’s Pete Carroll (seven) and Oklahoma’s Bud Wilkinson (six).
Clemson’s streak represented the fifth time a program has had a run of at least six top four finishes in the AP Poll. Miami (Fla.) had a seven-year run from 1986-92 with two different head coaches leading the program.
Swinney ranks second among coaches (and first among active coaches) in both College Football Playoff appearances and College Football Playoff wins.
Dabo Swinney completed his 15th season (and his 14th full season) in 2022 with a 161-39 record. Swinney amassed the second-most wins through a coach’s first 15 seasons in FBS history despite not having the benefit of a full season in his first year, as he went 4-3 on an interim basis in his first season in 2008 after taking over for Tommy Bowden in October.
The 2025 season is Swinney’s 18th season (and 17th full season) as Clemson’s head coach. With three seasons still remaining to accrue victories in the category, Swinney already ranks seventh in FBS history in wins in the first 20 seasons of a head coaching career (including coaches who did not coach 20 seasons).
If Swinney were to maintain his current .793 winning percentage through his 20th season in 2027, it would rank eighth in FBS history but third of any coach who started his career after World War II.
Including the upcoming Class of 2025 inductions of Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and Larry Blakeney, Swinney has coached against nine College Football Hall of Fame coaches in his head coaching career. Swinney is .500 or better against eight of the nine coaches and has a 22-14 overall record against Hall of Famers.
After being named Clemson’s full-time coach in December of 2008, Head Coach Dabo Swinney set about securing his first signing class in 2009.
His first class, which he tabbed the “Dandy Dozen,” brought home Clemson’s first ACC title since 1991 during their junior campaign in 2011. With a win in the 2024 ACC Championship Game, every Clemson signing class under Swinney has at least one ACC title to their credit in their tenures at Clemson, and every signing class since 2012 has earned at least one College Football Playoff berth.
Clemson finished the 2010s with 117 victories, tied for the third-most victories in a decade in major college football since the 1890s, trailing only Penn (124 in the 1890s) and Alabama (124 in the 2010s).
Clemson’s 2024 ACC Championship Game victory against SMU was its 50th of the 2020s. Clemson’s first five years of the 2020s represented the best first-half-decade in school history.
Clemson was one of only six programs to average at least 10 wins per season across the first five years of the decade. The other five schools all reached at least one College Football Playoff National Championship Game, and four of the other five schools won at least one national title.
Clemson has appeared in the Top 25 of 201 of a possible 229 AP polls (87.8 percent) since 2011, tied for third-most in the nation.
In September 2024, Clemson became the 18th program in history to be ranked in 500 AP Polls all-time.
Clemson has finished ranked in the AP Top 25 in each of the last 14 seasons, the second-longest streak in the country. Clemson is one of only three teams with a streak of at least 10 years and is one of only five teams to finish ranked in each of the last eight seasons.
Clemson’s 14-year streak is tied for the sixth-longest in the AP Poll era.
From 2015-20, Clemson recorded six consecutive AP Top 5 finishes, tied for the fifth-longest streak in AP Poll history.
Under Swinney, Clemson has set a school record for the longest number of consecutive seasons ranked in the AP Top 25 (14 from 2011-24), exceeding the previous record of 12 from 1986-97.
Since 2015, Clemson is 31-12 (.721) against AP Top 25 teams, the third-best winning percentage in the country.
Clemson is also 14-10 (.583) against AP Top 10 opponents in that time frame, one of only six teams in college football to produce at least a dozen wins against Top 10 foes in that span.
Clemson’s success also hasn’t been limited to opponents with bloated preseason rankings at kickoff time. Since 2015, Clemson’s 69 wins against teams that finish .500 or better are second-most in the nation. Clemson’s .775 winning percentage against that group ranks third.
Clemson…– Is 119-21 since the start of the 2015 season.– Is 79-10 against ACC opponents since the start of the 2015 season.– Is 35-6 in regular season non-conference games since the start of the 2014 season.– Is 155-11 under Dabo Swinney when leading at halftime, including a 138-7 mark since the start of the 2011 season.– Is 145-5 when leading after three quarters since the start of the 2011 season.– Is 88-8 when scoring first since the start of the 2015 season.– Is 137-10 when totaling more first downs than its opponent since 2011.– Has an 87-5 record when winning the turnover margin since 2011.– Is 86-4 when rushing for 200+ yards under Dabo Swinney.– Is 66-2 when both passing and rushing for 200+ yards under Dabo Swinney. Overall, Clemson is 116-2-1 in program history when reaching those marks.– Is 75-2 since 2015 when outscoring opponents in the “Middle Eight,” defined as the final four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half.– Has won 42 consecutive games when not allowing a sack dating to the 2011 season.– Is 42-1 when intercepting multiple passes in a game since the start of the 2015 season.– Is 69-5 when having a 100-yard rusher since 2011.– Is 72-5 in its last 77 games at home since the middle of the 2013 season, including an ACC-record 40 wins in a row from 2016-22.– Is 56-16 away from home and 40-9 in true road games since the start of the 2015 season– Is 35-4 in September games, 33-4 in October games, 33-6 in November games and 15-2 in December games since the start of the 2015 season.– Is 31-12 against AP Top 25 opponents since the start of the 2015 season, a record that expands to 32-12 against teams that rank in the AP Top 25 or CFP Top 25.– Is 120-2 in its last 122 games when holding teams to fewer than 23 points, a span that dates to the middle of the 2010 season.– Is 40-12 in one-possession games since the start of the 2011 season, the highest winning percentage in the country in one-score games in that span.
Clemson has won 79 of its last 89 games vs. ACC opponents, a time frame that includes ACC Championship Game wins against North Carolina (2015 and 2022), Virginia Tech (2016), Miami (2017), Pitt (2018), Virginia (2019), Notre Dame (2020) and SMU (2024).
Clemson has a winning record in its last 10 meetings against 14 of its ACC counterparts.
Clemson has won its most recent game against 12 of its conference counterparts and has an active winning streak of six or more games against seven ACC foes.
Clemson’s .888 winning percentage against conference competition since 2015, including postseason play, ranks second in the nation, and Clemson’s 106 wins against conference opponents since 2011 ranks third.
Since the advent of the College Football Playoff prior to the start of the 2014 season, Clemson is 70-5 at home. Clemson’s .933 winning percentage at home in that time frame ranks second in the nation.
In the CFP era, Clemson’s number of conference championships (eight) outnumber its home losses (five). Clemson and Alabama are the only schools in the nation whose numbers of conference titles since 2014 exceed their number of home losses.
Clemson finished its 2024 home slate with a 5-2 home record. It was Clemson’s 19th consecutive season with at least five home wins, the nation’s longest active streak, and its 23rd such season since 2000.
From 2015-23, Clemson produced at least one home win against AP Top 25 opponents in nine straight seasons, which had been the nation’s longest active streak prior to its conclusion in 2024. Over the previous 10 seasons, only Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State won at least one home game against an AP Top 25 squad in nine different years.
Clemson has won 40 of its last 49 true road games dating to the start of the 2015 season. Clemson’s .816 winning percentage in true road games is fourth-best road winning percentage in the nation since 2015, and Clemson’s 40 road wins in that span are second-most in the country.
Though Clemson fell on the road in the first round of the College Football Playoff, Clemson went 4-0 in true road games in the 2024 regular season, representing Clemson’s 10th perfect regular season road record in school history.
Antonio Williams earned first-team Freshman All-America honors in 2022 after he caught 56 passes for 604 yards with four touchdowns over 14 games (10 starts). He became the first true freshman to lead Clemson in receiving yards since Justyn Ross in 2018 and the first freshman to lead Clemson in receptions since Artavis Scott in 2014.
Injury befell Williams in his sophomore season in 2023, as he was limited by an ankle injury to only four regular season games in his second season before returning to play a pivotal role in Clemson’s come-from-behind Gator Bowl win against Kentucky. In the offseason to follow, Head Coach Dabo Swinney praised Williams’ maturity and laser focus and said the now-redshirt sophomore was in for a big year in 2024.
The head coach’s prognostication proved correct. Williams started every game for Clemson and developed into a bona fide top target for Clemson with career highs in every receiving category in 2024. He became the first Clemson player with double-digit touchdown receptions in a season since Tee Higgins in 2019 (13), and he recorded the ninth season in school history with double-digit touchdown receptions.
Williams tied Miami’s Xavier Restrepo for the ACC lead in receiving touchdowns in 2024 and finished tied for seventh in that category nationally.
Williams returned to Clemson in 2025 in reach of the school record for career receiving touchdowns of 27 shared by Clemson legends and NFL standouts DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins and Tee Higgins.
Williams, who has a catch in all 33 career games he has played, continues to climb Clemson’s all-time leaderboard in career receptions.
Williams’ versatility was on display in 2024. In addition to posting double-digit touchdown catches, Williams rushed for a touchdown and threw another. Williams’ 2024 season marked only the ninth time since 1969 that a Clemson player has passed for a touchdown, rushed for a touchdown and caught a touchdown in a single season, joining Sammy Watkins (2012), C.J. Spiller (2008 and 2009), Jacoby Ford (2009), Ray Williams (1985), Charlie Waters (1969) and Ray Yauger (1969).
Including his production both through the air and on the ground, quarterback Cade Klubnik ranked among the national leaders in total touchdown responsibility in 2024. Klubnik’s 2024 campaign ranked sixth in single-season touchdown responsibility in Clemson history.
Klubnik’s 36 passing touchdowns in 2024 ranked second in the ACC and third nationally. It ranked tied for second in school history.
In addition to his second-ranked passing touchdown total in school history, Klubnik’s 2024 campaign ranked among the seven best in school history in both passing yards and yards of total offense.
Among passers with at least 300 pass attempts, Klubnik ranked second in the nation and first among power conference passers in touchdown-to-interception ratio in 2024.
Klubnik enter 2025 in the Top 5 in the majority of passing categories and in the Top 10 in total offense categories in Clemson history.
Klubnik is one of 18 Clemson quarterbacks to win 15 career games as a starter since World War II. He is one win away from becoming the 11th Clemson quarterback in that span to win 20 career games as a starter.
Klubnik rushed for a career-high seven rushing touchdowns in 2024. He is one of 12 quarterbacks to rush for double-digit touchdowns in a career since Clemson transitioned away from the single wing in 1953, and he enters his senior season in reach of becoming the sixth Clemson quarterback in that span to reach 1,000 career rushing yards.
Klubnik is among the most interception-averse passers in Clemson history.
Klubnik’s national breakout came in the 2022 ACC Championship Game against North Carolina. He entered the game on Clemson’s third possession and completed 20-of-24 passes for 279 yards and a passing touchdown and added seven carries for 30 yards and a rushing touchdown. His 83.3 completion percentage set an ACC Championship Game record and led to his selection as the game’s Most Valuable Player in Clemson’s 39-10 victory. He became the third freshman (and second true freshman) in the game’s history to earn the honor, joining Jameis Winston and Dalvin Cook of Florida State.
Two years later, Klubnik repeated as ACC Championship Game MVP in a 34-31 win against SMU. He joined Virginia Tech’s Tyrod Taylor and Clemson’s Deshaun Watson as the only two-time MVPs in ACC Championship Game history.
Beyond this trio, the only other players in a current power conference to win multiple conference championship MVP awards are Michigan State’s Connor Cook (2013 and 2015), Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford (2007 and 2008) and Oklahoma’s Malcolm Kelly (2004 and 2006).
There was no shortage of contributing factors to Clemson’s leap in passing efficiency and explosiveness from 2023 and 2024, but notable among them was the arrival of then-true-freshmen T.J. Moore and Bryant Wesco Jr. in 2024. While Moore’s late-season surge was a bit too belated to garner national recognition, Wesco collected Freshman All-America honors from 247Sports, PFF, ESPN, The Athletic and the FWAA.
The duo ranked in the top six nationally in receiving yards by freshmen and in the top eight in yards per catch among freshmen with at least 30 receptions.
Moore and Wesco became the first freshman duo in a power conference to each record at least 650 receiving yards and at least five touchdown catches in a single season since at least 2000. Expanded to include the full FBS, the only other schools in that span to accomplish the feat were the 2005 Hawaii Warriors and the 2007 Tulsa Golden Hurricane. They made Clemson the only school with multiple 650-yard freshman receivers in the nation in 2024.
Wesco and Moore combined for four 100-yard receiving games in 2024, including both posting a 100-yard effort in postseason play.
With their 2024 performances, Wesco and Moore were two of 11 Clemson true freshmen to record at least one 100-yard receiving game since the NCAA instituted permanent first-year freshman eligibility in 1972.
Moore’s breakout performance came in a nine-catch, 116-yard effort against Texas’s then-top-ranked national pass defense in the College Football Playoff. Thanks in part to Clemson’s success through the air, Texas’ defense finished the season ranked seventh in passing yards allowed per game (173.8), and Moore’s 116 yards were the most by any player against the Longhorns in 2024 and were 113 more than Ohio State Freshman All-American Jeremiah Smith (one catch for three yards) produced two rounds later.
Since 2015, Clemson has produced a total of 32 All-ACC selections along the offensive line, including 12 first-team honors. Clemson’s 32 all-conference selections by offensive linemen are an ACC high and the second-most of any power conference program. Clemson also ranks tied for third nationally in first-team selections in that span.
SportSource Analytics produces an Offensive Line Efficiency metric that takes into account tackle for loss percentages, sack percentages, percentages of rushes gaining 4+ yards and success on third-or-fourth-and-short. Clemson among the national leaders in that total metric since 2015.
Clemson’s success in its 79-17 run since 2018 has been powered in part at the line of scrimmage, where Clemson holds a 300-157 edge over opponents in sacks in that time frame. Clemson’s +143 margin in sacks since 2018 is the highest differential in the country.
Clemson officially announced Tom Allen as its new defensive coordinator on Jan. 14.
“Tom checked every box that I was looking for,” Head Coach Dabo Swinney said. “We’ve got a great football coach — and a great leader of men — coming to Clemson… He brings a ton of experience and was highly recommended by some of the best people in this business. He is obviously coming off of a great year as the defensive coordinator at Penn State, and we’re excited to welcome him as our defensive coordinator here at Clemson.”
Allen joined the Tigers with more than three decades of coaching experience. In 2024, he helped Penn State to a school-record 13 wins and a College Football Playoff berth. His defense recorded two pick-sixes in Penn State’s 38-10 win against SMU in the College Football Playoff First Round, and in the following game, his unit bottled up Heisman runner-up Ashton Jeanty, holding the star running back to a season-low 3.47 yards per carry and no touchdowns in a 31-14 Penn State victory in the CFP Quarterfinal at Fiesta Bowl.
Penn State finished seventh in the nation in total defense (294.8 yards per game) and eighth in the nation in scoring defense (16.5 points per game) under Allen’s guidance in 2024.
“I’m thankful for the opportunity that Coach Swinney has given me to lead the defense,” Allen said. “I have admired him from afar for years and look forward to working for him and with his defensive staff… I can’t wait to get to work with this Clemson staff and team and their commitment to ‘Best is the Standard.’”
As a sophomore in 2024, defensive end T.J. Parker posted 64 tackles (19.5 for loss), 11.0 sacks, a school-record six forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and a pass breakup while starting all 14 games for the Tigers. He finished the year as only player in the nation to rank in the Top 10 nationally in forced fumbles (six, T-2nd), tackles for loss (19.5, 5th) and sacks (11.0, 9th).
Parker’s 19.5 tackles for loss and his 11.0 sacks were both the most by a Clemson player since Clelin Ferrell’s 19.5 tackles for loss and 11.5 sacks in 2018.
Parker’s junior season in 2025 will be played under the tutelage of new Clemson Defensive Coordinator Tom Allen. A year ago, Allen led Penn State defensive end Abdul Carter to unanimous All-America honors and a presumptive early pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Carter’s 2024 campaign bore a number of statistical similarities to Parker’s.
Though he did not garner first-team all-conference honors from the ACC, Parker earned All-America honorable mention recognition from Phil Steele after he broke the Clemson single-season school record for forced fumbles in a season (six), surpassing Brandon Maye’s five from 2009. His six forced fumbles finished tied for second in the nation and tied for the national lead among power conference players in forced fumbles.
In each of linebacker Wade Woodaz’s first three seasons at Clemson, the Tampa product has watched as one of his linebacker counterparts earned All-America recognition, including honors for Barrett Carter in 2022 and 2024 and for Jeremiah Trotter Jr. in 2022 and 2023. Head Coach Dabo Swinney was quick though to warn observers not to overlook Woodaz.
“He’s a baller,” Swinney said. “The kid is tough, physical, he can really run. He really understands the game at a high level. He played most of his [prep] career as a quarterback and as a safety, so he has a great understanding of the game. He plays really, really hard; he’s a great effort guy, he’s a great preparer and he loves it. He’s a fun guy to coach and a fun guy to watch play because he plays the way you want everybody to play.”
The first career start for versatile hybrid linebacker from Tampa actually came at safety in the 2022 ACC Championship Game. He then served as Clemson’s primary Sam linebacker in the 2022 Orange Bowl.
Woodaz opened the 2023 season with a takeaway in three straight games. He recovered a muffed punt in the season opener at Duke, his second straight season opener with an impact special teams play after blocking a punt in his collegiate debut a year earlier. In Clemson’s second game against Charleston Southern, he recorded his first career interception and returned it 35 yards for a touchdown to help Clemson blow the game open.
Though Clemson’s linebacker corps in 2024 included All-American Barrett Carter and ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year Sammy Brown, it was Woodaz who led the team in tackles, a feat he accomplished despite missing two games with a leg contusion. Coaches credited Woodaz with 89 stops, including 10 tackles for loss, 3.0 sacks, six pass breakups to go with three forced fumbles and an interception.
Woodaz was one of six power conference players to record double-digit tackles for loss, three or more forced fumbles and an interception in 2024 (Texas’ Anthony Hill Jr. and Colin Simmons, Indiana’s Jailin Walker, UCLA’s Kain Medrano and Texas Tech’s Jacob Rodriguez). He also became the first Clemson player credited with at least 75 tackles and at least three forced fumbles since Isaiah Simmons in 2018.
Linebacker Sammy Brown arrived at Clemson in January 2024 as a consensus Top 30 player in his recruiting class and as the nation’s reigning High School Butkus Award winner.
Head Coach Dabo Swinney praised Brown as an “alpha,” but spoke frequently about Brown’s learning curve at the linebacker position after playing both running back and linebacker at Jefferson High School in Commerce, Ga. The linebacker tabbed as 247Sports’ No. 1 “freak athlete” in the 2024 recruiting class proved to be a quick study, appearing in all 14 games for Clemson with six starts.
In addition to immediately earning a role on special teams, Brown saw extended action at linebacker in runaway wins against App State, NC State and Stanford in September, combining for 30 tackles (as credited by gameday stat crews), 5.5 tackles for loss, 2.0 sacks and two pass breakups in reserve in those three contests.
After Clemson opened its first eight games in two-linebacker sets, Brown earned his first start at Virginia Tech on Nov. 9 as Clemson opened the game with three linebackers. The former five-star prospect delivered, recording a team-high eight tackles (per the gameday stat crew) with 2.5 tackles for loss and a sack.
“Sammy’s been getting better and better and better and it was awesome to see him have that type of game,” Swinney said after Brown’s performance at Virginia Tech. “He’s just a confident young man, and, boy, he’s got a bright future ahead of him. He’s going to be a great one.”
Despite playing only 444 defensive snaps over 14 games in 2024, Brown ranked second in the nation in tackles for loss among freshmen.
Brown led Clemson in tackles for loss and — along with Barrett Carter (10.5) and Wade Woodaz (10.0) — gave Clemson three linebackers with double-digit tackles for loss for the first time since 2016 (Kendall Joseph, Ben Boulware and Dorian O’Daniel).
Brown ranked third in Clemson history in tackles for loss by a true freshman and fourth among that group in sacks.
Included below is how Brown’s freshman campaign stacks up against the first years of some of the most notable linebackers of the Swinney era at Clemson.
For the third time in the past four cycles, Clemson dipped into the portal for a scholarship transfer when the Tigers added three new players for 2025.
– WR Tristan Smith (signed Dec. 18): Smith joined Clemson after playing the 2024 season at Southeast Missouri State, helping the Redhawks to a first-place finish in the Big South-OVC Football Association and a berth in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. The 2024 all-conference honoree played in SEMO’s final 11 games of the season, catching 76 passes for 934 yards and six touchdown receptions in addition to rushing for one touchdown.
– DE Will Heldt (signed Dec. 19): Heldt signed with Clemson after playing his first two collegiate seasons at Purdue, appearing in all 24 games for the Boilermakers from 2023-24. As a sophomore in 2024, gameday stat crews credited Heldt with 56 tackles (10.0 for loss), 5.0 sacks and a fumble recovery he returned 16 yards for a touchdown. He recorded 2.5 sacks and the 16-yard scoop-and-score in back-to-back games against ranked opponents against Illinois and Oregon in October.
– LB Jeremiah Alexander (signed Jan. 8): Alexander played his first three collegiate seasons at Alabama from 2022-24. Following a redshirt year in 2022 in which he appeared in three games, Alexander played in 24 of the Crimson Tide’s 27 games across the 2023-24 seasons and was credited with eight tackles in those contests. He led Alabama’s Thompson High School to the 2021 state championship (alongside current Clemson defensive lineman Peter Woods) as a consensus five-star recruit across most major outlets and ranked among the top 50 players nationally in his class.
Head Coach Dabo Swinney expounded on Clemson’s strategy for the three winter transfer additions:
“As I’ve always said, we do what’s best for Clemson. We’ll use the portal whenever we need it and we’ll be strategic with it. We needed it four years ago; we needed a backup quarterback and we got one. The next year, we needed a backup quarterback and we got one and he was here for two years.
“This year, we didn’t anticipate signing a defensive line portal guy. We had two great ones committed and we were taking two. But as y’all know things can change in recruiting. We had a young man back out and decide to go somewhere else, so there wasn’t anybody left to recruit that could fill the need. Now we [had] a gap so we had to go use the portal and we needed a high-level guy and we got the guy I wanted to hit [Heldt].
“From a receiver standpoint, we had two guys go in the portal, and so we had a gap. We needed to go get a guy, and we needed somebody that could come in and help us with our depth and come in and compete and we found a great kid in Tristan out in Southeast Missouri. We were looking for a little length, and high school recruiting was over; there was nobody to get. We needed to go get a guy.
“And then the linebacker situation, honestly, we weren’t really going to take a ‘backer. We knew we needed another guy. Logan Anderson, our signee, tore his ACL. Kobe [McCloud], his situation [rehabbing from a knee injury]. We knew we probably needed another guy, but we were going to wait until May. And then Jeremiah popped up. We knew all about him, obviously recruited him hard, knew his family. That was a really good situation that worked out for us.
“That’s really it. Nothing different. I know everybody likes to write about it, but our process is still the same. We’re going to recruit high school kids as long as we can get the best of the best. As long as we can get the Gideon Davidsons of the world and the Sammy Browns of the world and the T.J. Parkers and Peter Woods and Cade Klubniks, that’s what we’re going to do, and we’re going to develop… And then we have to respond if we have a situation and we have a gap in our roster or we have kids that leave. For us, that’s how we use the portal, but the process isn’t any different. They’ve still got to be the right fit, they’ve got to check all the boxes, they can’t just be a good player. No different than our high school recruiting.”
Placekicker Nolan Hauser arrived at Clemson in January 2024 as the national high school record-holder for career field goals made (66) during his career at Hough High School in Cornelius, N.C. As one of two scholarship kickers on the roster, he earned Clemson’s starting placekicker job coming out of fall camp.
Hauser (pronounced HOO-zer, not HOW-zer) opened his career with a streak of 25 consecutive made kicks (five field goals & 20 PATs) before a blocked PAT against Stanford in game four accounted for his first miss.
A week later at Florida State, Hauser made five field goals and accounted for 17 total points in Clemson’s 16-point road win. The five-field-goal performance by Hauser was Clemson’s first since Chandler Catanzaro went 5-for-5 on field goal attempts against Boston College in 2011. It was the seventh five-field-goal performance by a kicker in Clemson history.
On Nov. 9, Hauser’s six points against Virginia Tech gave him the school record for points in a true freshman season, breaking the previous mark of 78 set by Sammy Watkins in 2011. In the ACC Championship Game, he reached the century mark on the season to post the first 100-point season by a true freshman in Clemson history.
Hauser’s 113-point 2024 season ranked tied for sixth in Clemson history in kicking points scored in a single season and tied for ninth in school history in points scored by any means in a single season.
Though the pronunciation of his last name often trips up observers, Hauser made his name much more nationally recognizable with the seminal highlight of the 2024 ACC Championship Game.
In what Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney called “the biggest kick in Clemson history,” the true freshman booted a 56-yard game winning field goal as time expired to give Clemson its 22nd ACC title, its 10th win of the season and its seventh College Football Playoff berth. Of note:
– Hauser’s field goal gave Clemson the first walk-off win in ACC Championship Game history.
– Hauser became the first Clemson player to kick a game-winning walk-off field goal since Chandler Catanzaro hit a 37-yard field goal to beat LSU to end the 2012 Chick-Fil-A Bowl.
– Hauser’s 56-yard field goal was the longest game-winning field goal as time expired in Clemson history.
– Hauser’s career-long 56-yard field goal was the fourth-longest field goal in Clemson history but its longest away from Death Valley. It was also the longest field goal in postseason play in Clemson history.
– Hauser became the first FBS player ever to win a conference championship game by kicking a field goal of 50 or more yards as time expired.
– Hauser’s 56-yard field goal was the longest in ACC Championship Game history, surpassing a 52-yarder by B.T. Potter in 2022 against North Carolina.
– The game-winning field goal came in Hauser’s home metro area, as his hometown of Cornelius, N.C. is roughly 20 miles north of Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.
Like the Colquitt family punting at Tennessee, the Swinney family holding for placekicks at Clemson has become a dynasty of its own.
Head Coach Dabo Swinney’s oldest son, Will, arrived at Clemson in 2017 and immediately earned Clemson’s starting holder position on placekicks. He played five seasons and a record-tying 69 games at Clemson through 2021. In those five seasons, Clemson scored 565 points on placekicks, including field goals and PATs, and he held for 555 of those 565 points. The only 10 Clemson kicking points not held by Will in his career were instead held by his brother, Drew, who was Clemson’s starter at the position in 2022.
Will and Drew were succeeded by the youngest of the three Swinney boys, Clay, a redshirt sophomore who entered his second season as Clemson’s starting holder in 2024. Clay’s presence creates a plausible scenario in which every Clemson placekick in a full 10-year span from 2017-26 could be held by a Swinney.
Clemson’s last hold by any player outside the Swinney family was on the final point of Clemson’s 2016 national championship, as Seth Ryan, coincidentally also the son of a famous long-time coach (Rex Ryan), held the PAT following Hunter Renfrow’s game-winning touchdown with one second remaining.
Amid Clemson’s frustrating 4-4 start to the 2023 season, Head Coach Dabo Swinney was running out of descriptors to explain Clemson’s maddening penchant for turning the ball over — and doing so catastrophically.
A year later, Clemson was one of the nation’s best teams at protecting the football. The Tigers ranked fourth in the nation in turnover margin (+16).
Clemson’s +16 turnover margin ranked eighth in school history. It was the team’s top turnover margin in a season under Dabo Swinney, surpassing its +15 mark in 2019.
With 10 giveaways in 14 games, Clemson set a school record for fewest giveaways per game and tied for second in fewest total giveaways.
From 2018-20, Clemson strung together its three best seasons in school history in yards per play while accumulating a 39-3 record and three College Football Playoff berths. In the three years to follow, Clemson’s explosiveness dropped from an average of seventh nationally to an average of 91st.
The Tigers took a significant jump nationally in yards per play and scrimmage plays of various distances in 2024.
Clemson has lost 21 games since 2015, the third-fewest in the nation in that span. Nine of Clemson’s 21 losses since 2015 — greater than 42 percent — have come against AP Top 5 teams.
The opponents to whom Clemson has lost since 2015 have a combined final record of 211-66, a winning percentage of .762. Clemson has not lost to a team that finished with a losing record since 2017 and has not lost to a team with a losing record at the time of the game since losing to 2-5 Boston College in 2010, Dabo Swinney’s second full season as head coach.
Since 2011, the Tigers have played 52 games with a final margin of eight or fewer points, and Clemson’s .769 winning percentage in those one-possession contests is the best in the country in that time frame.
Clemson’s 99 400-yard games since 2015 are tied for the third-most in the nation. Clemson has reached 500 yards in 57 of those contests, tied for the fourth-most in the nation.
Clemson has fielded one of the nation’s most balanced offenses since 2018, averaging 264 passing yards per game and 191 rushing yards per game from 2018-24. Clemson was one of only six teams nationally to average at least 260 passing yards and at least 190 rushing yards on a per-game basis in that span.
Expanded to cover the entire College Football Playoff era, Clemson, Alabama and Oklahoma were the only schools to exceed 29,000 rushing yards and 40,000 passing yards in the first 11 years of the College Football Playoff era.
Clemson’s has reached both 200 passing yards and 200 rushing yards in 34 games since the start of the 2018 season.
Clemson’s six such games in 2024 ranked tied for first nationally and tied for fourth in a season in school history.
Clemson has scored at least one rushing touchdown in 87 of its 96 games since the start of the 2018 season. Clemson’s 87 games with a rushing touchdown in that span are the most in the nation. Clemson has scored multiple rushing touchdowns in 72 of those games, also the nation’s best.
Clemson’s nine games without a rushing touchdown since 2018 have all come away from Death Valley, including six road games and three neutral-site games. Clemson has an active streak of 60 consecutive home games with a rushing touchdown at Death Valley; the last team to hold Clemson out of the Memorial Stadium end zones on the ground was Troy in the 2016 home opener.
Clemson has ranked among the top four schools in the power conferences in average players per game in eight of the last nine seasons.
Clemson has not only often led the nation in that category but has often lapped the field. In 2019, Clemson played an average of 76.0 players per game, an average that far exceeded all power conference programs by more than 11 players — a full unit — per game.
Per data available via the NCAA stat database, Clemson ranked second among power conference schools in average players per game in 2024 — only six hundredths of a player behind national leader Tennessee — but ranked first in total players played.
Even prior to the adoption of new redshirt rules, Clemson routinely played close to 60 players or more per game under Swinney.
The approach to creating functional depth and rewarding players ready to play has been a key philosophy for Head Coach Dabo Swinney, whose own collegiate playing career was hatched as a walk-on fighting for playing time in Alabama’s receiving corps.
“We’re fully committed to playing guys who deserve to play,” Swinney said. “You commit to a guy early in the season, and even if a guy has only played 10 percent of the snaps, when you get to game eight or nine, they’ve got some good experience.”
Clemson has played 20 or more true freshmen in every year since the creation of the four-game redshirt rule in 2018.
In 2024, Clemson once again led all power conference teams in snaps played by true freshmen according to data published by PFF.
Since the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, Clemson has more often than not produced one of the nation’s elite defenses.
Clemson ranked in the Top 30 in the country in total defense in each of the first 10 seasons of the CFP era and ranked among the Top 30 in scoring defense in those 10 campaigns (including five Top 5 finishes in the category).
Clemson’s defensive anomaly in 2024 led to a change in leadership, as the Tigers plucked Penn State Defensive Coordinator Tom Allen for Clemson’s defensive coordinator position immediately following the Nittany Lions’ exit from the College Football Playoff. He now leads a Clemson defense that tied for the national lead in Top 10 finishes in average yards allowed per game in the College Football Playoff era.
Clemson has held opponents under 300 yards of offense 50 times since the start of the 2018 season, tied for the second-most in the country.
Clemson is the nation’s cumulative leader in takeaways since 2018.
Clemson is 120-2 in its last 122 games when holding opponents under 23 points, a timeframe that dates to the 2010 season. In the College Football Playoff era, Clemson has held opponents to 22 or fewer points in 104 games, second-most in the nation. Clemson is 102-2 in those contests.
Clemson’s defense calls Death Valley home but might as well file for dual residency in opponents’ backfields.
Since 2012, Clemson leads the nation in both sacks and tackles for loss. In September 2023, Clemson became the first program in the country to record 500 sacks since the start of the 2012 season.
Clemson has led the country (or shared the national lead) in tackles for loss five times since 2012. No other program has done so in more than two seasons.
Clemson notched its 30th sack of the 2024 season in its regular season finale against South Carolina. Clemson is the only school in the nation with at least 30 sacks in all 11 seasons of the College Football Playoff era.
In 2024, Clemson extended its streak of scoring multiple defensive touchdowns to 15 straight seasons. The last time Clemson had fewer than two defensive touchdowns in a season was 2009, Dabo Swinney’s first full season as head coach, when the Tigers supplemented a single defensive touchdown with six special teams touchdowns.
Clemson’s 15-year streak with two or more defensive touchdowns entered 2025 as the nation’s longest active streak.
