I don't find too many coaching scenarios worse than Florida these days. But Clemson is nearing it.

After starting out the season in the top five, the Tigers have dropped to 1-2 with their win coming by way of a seventeen point comeback over Troy.

Dabo walked into a press conference yesterday with a answer to a question that never came. A beat reporter asked him if there was any play call he regretted calling in the loss to Georgia Tech.

Dabo took that question and went on a five minute diatribe about him having years ahead of him. He said " If Clemson wants to send me on my way I'll happily go coach and do my thing elsewhere."

With this and Brian Kelly going off after a win, there seems to be signs of these guys cracking under the pressure of NIL, transfer portal, and social media pressure. It makes you respect the way a younger guy like Dan Lanning has handled his business. Could you imagine Joe Paterno in today's game?

1 hour ago, GatOrlando said:

Could you imagine Joe Paterno in today's game?

Yes, sitting next to Saban.

I am not about to kick Dabo when he is down but...the man has not handled the Portal era well at all, practically ignoring it as a matter of fact. Nice to know that he feels confident in the rosters he has recruited out of high school, but he has fallen off in that regard as well. Clemson simply is not as talented as they were thought to be by the pundits and it is showing up between he lines. H either adjusts his recruitment strategy or he will lose his credibility with the Clemson fan base and maybe be coaching at somewhere like...Troy. That would be sad for a man who has recently won two Nattys.

3 hours ago, Steven A said:

Yes, sitting next to Saban.

I wonder what kind of analyst he would be. Saban has actually surprised me with the fact he has a personality 😂.

Seriously he is really good as long as Alabama isn't the subject.

3 hours ago, Nevada Dawg said:

I am not about to kick Dabo when he is down but...the man has not handled the Portal era well at all, practically ignoring it as a matter of fact. Nice to know that he feels confident in the rosters he has recruited out of high school, but he has fallen off in that regard as well. Clemson simply is not as talented as they were thought to be by the pundits and it is showing up between he lines. H either adjusts his recruitment strategy or he will lose his credibility with the Clemson fan base and maybe be coaching at somewhere like...Troy. That would be sad for a man who has recently won two Nattys.

He built Clemson. There will be a statue for him one day, but his recruiting has fallen into the double digits and he refuses to use the portal. Dabo likes to speak about doing things the right way and building from within. But the game has changed. Nick Saban saw it. You can't win with just homegrown talent anymore.

Kirby Smart and Ryan Day adapted. Dabo will have to or accept the fact Clemson won't win another title. He had a great five year run.

Obvious to some, but scorned by others, the Portal presents an opportunity to add depth to positions that are thin or weak.

Portal players have college level snaps behind them and video from the D1 level for evaluations.

Dabo has an outstanding win-loss record at Clemson including two national championships. Not padding the roster by adding depth from the Portal seems to be a stumbling block for the Clemson program.

This isn't the first time Dabo has done this. He took a call from a dude named Tyler from Spartanburg on his radio show and went on a diatribe about how "the expectation is greater than the appreciation". Long story short, he thinks Clemson fans still need to be lobbing roses at him for his past success instead of expecting championships every year. Now he goes off about his great record and how he will move on if they don't think his record is good enough.

This is Power 4 football where coaches make eight figures per year and are expected to win. Look at what happened to Ed Orgeron. Fired a season and a half after winning the national championship. Clemson doesn't owe Dabo anything except a paycheck for doing his job.

Dabo opened himself up for criticism by saying in the preseason that he believed his team had the talent to go 16-0.

Three things I disagreed with the most from the preseason 'expert' nationwide nattering nabobs.😁

1. Archie Manning will win the Heisman Trophy. 2. Texas will win it all. 3. Clemson, with stud players everywhere, will roll through its schedule.

Archie came into the season having never started a game on the road and unable to beat out a 7th-round draft pick before this season.

The Texas O-line and receiving corps were wiped out.

Sark won a conference title in the B12 with a superior roster (defeating OK State in the conference champ game), but other than this accomplishment? With road games at Florida, Georgia, and what looked to be an improved Oklahoma team in Dallas, the degree of SEC schedule difficulty ramped up from 2024. As of today, road games at Kentucky and even Mississippi State will not be layups. Ditto for Arkansas, Vanderbilt, and A&M at home.

All of the highly touted Clemson players on D were on the 2024 team that was lit up by SMU and Texas and lost to Louisville and South Carolina at home.

In the 2024-25 PO, Cade Klubnik played a very good game at Texas, but the rest of his stats were padded by his play against the weaker teams on the schedule.

This season's 2024 Florida State? Clemson and Texas are in the running.