Yea Kiffin is good blah blah, but that showing was pathetic. Clemson was dominated on both sides of the ball. Dabo is refusing to play the modern recruiting game and it's demonstrating just how much things have changed. Clemson looks like a high school team now.

I am predicting a week ~10 canning.

Week 7

I am curious to see...he definitely seems to be hitting the phase of his career Jimbo was in when he got here. His refusal to adapt to the transfer portal area really is interesting. Their last few years have not been great, especially considering how mediocre the ACC is:

2025: 7-6, lost a meaningless bowl game to Penn St.
2024: 10-4, made the playoff as an autobid in a bad year for the ACC...got thumped by Texas
2023: 9-4, beat Kentucky in a bowl
2022: 11-3, thumped by Tennessee in a bowl
2021: 10-3, beat Iowa St. in the Cheez Its Bowl

ETA: His buyout would be $57 mil this year...

Week 8

Right after Norvell gets fired.

He's exactly like Jimbo in that without 1 QB he wouldn't have jack shinola.

He's trying to get fired. Why else would he bring Aggie Chad back?

JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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Rec said:

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He's exactly like Jimbo in that without 1 QB he wouldn't have jack shinola.

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To be fair, he did at least win championships with 2 different QBs (Watson & Lawrence).

So saying he was a 1 QB guy isn't necessarily true.

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You are right. He's better than Jimbo.

Jarrin Jay said:

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In no world should Dabo be fired. He has won 2 NCs for Clemson, played in another, won the ACC just 2 seasons ago. If he had done at aTm what he has done at Clemson I would give him a 10 year leash of 6-6 to 8-4 seasons and not even care.

But the reality is that he needs to adapt, and if not then come to an agreement with the program to resign with a nice payout, and go coach an FCS program where it is still 100% about HS recruiting, development and love of the game. I think Clemson will be VERY hesitant to fire Dabo, think he could go 5-7 this year and 6-6 next year before the conversation even starts. There will not be many good candidates interested if you fire a 2x NC winning coach who just won the ACC and got in the playoffs and had a down year where they still qualified for a bowl game.

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If the world hadn't changed so much in the last 5 years, I'd agree, but that's not the case.

I think most coaches would actually look at Clemson and say "This program still has recent enough success that if I got NIL money, they could have a VERY quick turnaround".

Nobody would look at it as Dabo getting fired for a bad patch - they would view it (properly, IMO) as Dabo first refusing to acknowledge the portal was a huge part of the game and then failing to acknowledge NIL as a huge part of that.

Jarrin Jay said:

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In no world should Dabo be fired. He has won 2 NCs for Clemson, played in another, won the ACC just 2 seasons ago. If he had done at aTm what he has done at Clemson I would give him a 10 year leash of 6-6 to 8-4 seasons and not even care.

But the reality is that he needs to adapt, and if not then come to an agreement with the program to resign with a nice payout, and go coach an FCS program where it is still 100% about HS recruiting, development and love of the game. I think Clemson will be VERY hesitant to fire Dabo, think he could go 5-7 this year and 6-6 next year before the conversation even starts. There will not be many good candidates interested if you fire a 2x NC winning coach who just won the ACC and got in the playoffs and had a down year where they still qualified for a bowl game.

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It all depends on what kind of boosters Clemson has, and I have no idea where they fall onn the spectrum. At Alabama, he would be gone after a losing season even if he has 2x NCs. At A&M, he'd have a lifetime contract, and we'd be naming the field, the stadium, and a couple of roads after him.

JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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Rec said:

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He's exactly like Jimbo in that without 1 QB he wouldn't have jack shinola.

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To be fair, he did at least win championships with 2 different QBs (Watson & Lawrence).

So saying he was a 1 QB guy isn't necessarily true.

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And played for a third

NoahAg said:

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Zachary Klement said:

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2025: 7-6, lost a meaningless bowl game to Penn St.
2024: 10-4, made the playoff as an autobid in a bad year for the ACC...got thumped by Texas
2023: 9-4, beat Kentucky in a bowl
2022: 11-3, thumped by Tennessee in a bowl
2021: 10-3, beat Iowa St. in the Cheez Its Bowl

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Have we ever had a 4 year stretch this good???

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If only we could play a collection of NC State, Duke, Wake Forrest, SMU, Virginia Tech, etc. annually instead of Texas, Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, etc.

When they made the playoffs in 2024, they played two SEC teams in the regular season. Georgia - beat them by 31 and South Carolina, another loss. They also managed to lose to Louisville. The only ranked win they had came in the ACCCG over an overrated SMU team that lost by 28 in the CFP.

I smell a finish season and retire situation.

Also adding their last few games against SEC teams;
2026: lost to LSU by 41
2025: lost to an LSU team that finished unranked, beat a bad South Carolina team
2024: lost to UGA by 31, lost to South Carolina
2023: beat 5-7 South Carolina by 9, beat 7-5 Kentucky by 3
2022: lost to 8-5 South Carolina, lost to Tennessee in the Orange Bowl by 17
2021: lost to UGA, beat 7-6 South Carolina

So they have gotten drilled by every good SEC team they played, lost to a number of middling-to-bad SEC teams, and scraped together a few wins over South Carolina and Kentucky.

Emilio Fantastico said:

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NoahAg said:

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Zachary Klement said:

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2025: 7-6, lost a meaningless bowl game to Penn St.
2024: 10-4, made the playoff as an autobid in a bad year for the ACC...got thumped by Texas
2023: 9-4, beat Kentucky in a bowl
2022: 11-3, thumped by Tennessee in a bowl
2021: 10-3, beat Iowa St. in the Cheez Its Bowl

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Have we ever had a 4 year stretch this good???

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Yes, when we played in a dying conference that was as weak as the ACC is now.

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That dying conference sent one of their teams to Kyle last year in a high stakes game

After he gets drummed by N Carolina

Can't they cook up a for cause firing? Surely Dabo has nailed a coed or something in his 20 years there

57 Million dollar buy out regardless of year in his 11.5 Million dollar a year contract through 2031.

ElephantRider said:

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He's trying to get fired. Why else would he bring Aggie Chad back?

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This. He's being petty and spiteful to the Clemson fans as they've lost patience and respect for him. He still has that chip on his shoulder came about from guiding "little ol Clemson" to two titles should absolve him from any wrongdoing. Dude is a millionaire and needs to **** or get off the pot.

Blonde Coffee Beans said:

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Emilio Fantastico said:

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NoahAg said:

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Zachary Klement said:

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2025: 7-6, lost a meaningless bowl game to Penn St.
2024: 10-4, made the playoff as an autobid in a bad year for the ACC...got thumped by Texas
2023: 9-4, beat Kentucky in a bowl
2022: 11-3, thumped by Tennessee in a bowl
2021: 10-3, beat Iowa St. in the Cheez Its Bowl

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Have we ever had a 4 year stretch this good???

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Yes, when we played in a dying conference that was as weak as the ACC is now.

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That dying conference sent one of their teams to Kyle last year in a high stakes game

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The Southwest conference sent a team to play in Kyle last year?

NoahAg said:

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Zachary Klement said:

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2025: 7-6, lost a meaningless bowl game to Penn St.
2024: 10-4, made the playoff as an autobid in a bad year for the ACC...got thumped by Texas
2023: 9-4, beat Kentucky in a bowl
2022: 11-3, thumped by Tennessee in a bowl
2021: 10-3, beat Iowa St. in the Cheez Its Bowl

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Have we ever had a 4 year stretch this good???

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So, those four years (2021-24) total 40-14, .714 winning percentage. We've had lots of four-year stretches that exceed that, starting with 1902-05, and done again under Charley Moran, Dana X. Bible, and Homer Norton. A few nattys in there, too.

More recently, 1974-78 under Emory Ballard, and the decade of SWC dominance under Jackie Sherill and R. C. Slocum (1985-95). Pick any four-year stretch in there!

Even our disappointing coaches have almost lived up to that Clemson record. I count at least different four-year stretches (two overlapping) where we're only two games worse than this Clemson stretch: 1955-58 (Bear Bryant + Jim Myers), 1997-2000 (RC in the Big XII), 2010-13 (Sherman into Sumlin), 2012-15 (Sumlin's first four), 2018-21 (Jimbo's first four). All* of those coaches got fired!

Merely winning one more game every other year (two games in four years) in any of those stretches would've put us ahead of 2021-24 Clemson, and still would not have been enough to save those coaches' jobs. Thus, Dabo should be starting to feel the heat. He's earned his long leash, but is stretching to the end of it.


* Bear doesn't really count since Mama called him home, but his last three years were so great that even a 4-6 Myers followup only barely dragged the four-year stretch below the threshold.

Deputy, there is no way for any of us that you don't have a possible motion as to when this could happen unless any of us have Direct in circle involvement with their A.D. and athletic department. I doubt that.

So, with that said and with the cachet, he's bought himself having one national championship not so terribly long ago, I am sure, regardless of how bad the season goes they will allow him to finish it out, but that doesn't mean that they may not start vetting candidates behind the scene and be ready to move immediately. I honestly think he has an easy enough schedule that he'll probably make a bowl again this year, even as bad as they looked in game one and with him making another postseason, it'll probably buy him at least another year to see what happens again next season.

Is it all Dabo's fault in regards to recruiting? He can hate or love NIL all he wants, but the money has to be there and that goes beyond him. Does Clemson have the support on that front from alumni and the administration? Or are they like 90s A&M and our former efforts in the facilities race...where we let everything completely implode before we finally got serious.

Clemson has some juice. Maybe not top level SEC/B10 juice but top of mid level. Dabo was outspoken about his resistance to NIL and especially the transfer portal piece of it and I think there are a lot of people, me included, that agree with him . Still , if you don't embrace the environment you won't win big. It's just the way things are now.

Doesn't help that Clemson got destroyed by the coach and program that take the exact opposite approach and are always trying to push the envelope to their advantage .

Clemson's remaining schedule is incredibly weak so regardless of how bad their game against LSU went it's not out of the question for them to still win 10 games. They only have one more game on the schedule against a team that's currently ranked.

vs Georgia Southern
vs UNC
@ California
vs (7) Miami
vs Charleston Southern
vs Virginia Tech
@ Florida State
@ Syracuse
vs Georgia Tech
@Duke
vs South Carolina

They avoid SMU, Virginia, and Louisville but if Miami does to them something like LSU did then that's when that conversation starts to pick up steam.

Dabo's starting QB had 1 game starter experience over 3 seasons with only 500 yards passing total. His backup is a true freshman with no game experience. The reporter above had a good question regarding his roster construction. Dabo was a little testy.

It was a legit question. Dabo could have handled it better. The "did you play football" question in particular was awkward. Had nothing to do with the question or an answer. The "gotcha guy" comment also awkward . Maybe it's true but it doesn't make the question any less legit.