Clemson football may be nationally ranked entering the season, but CBS Sports analysts are far from convinced that the Tigers belong among the ACC’s top contenders.
None of the seven analysts who released conference ballots on Thursday placed Clemson inside the top three. The Tigers were ranked fourth by Chip Patterson, Brandon Marcello and Brad Crawford, while John Talty had them as low as sixth.
That is a notable amount of skepticism for a Clemson team that opens the year at No. 23 in the Coaches Poll and is still trying to reestablish itself as one of the ACC’s premier programs.
The criticism went beyond simple conference placement.
Clemson also picked up two votes as the ACC’s most overrated team, including one from CBS Sports analyst Tom Fornelli.
“If we consider the last three seasons – the ones with not only the transfer portal but also open NIL – to be the modern era of college football, then Clemson is a powerhouse of the past,” Fornelli said. “There’s no denying the greatness accomplished by the Tigers under Dabo Swinney, but things have changed. In the ‘modern era,’ Clemson is 26-14, including 15-9 in ACC play. It has lost its place among the elite. None of which is to say the Tigers can’t or won’t have a strong season (there’s plenty of wiggle room in the ACC after Miami), but an 8-4 mark is far more likely than the double-digit win seasons of yore. As is 7-5.”
Fornelli’s argument centers on what Clemson has done recently rather than the championship standard Swinney established earlier in his tenure.
Over the past three seasons, Clemson has gone 26-14 overall and 15-9 in ACC play. Those are respectable numbers for most programs, but they fall well short of the expectations that became normal during Clemson’s run of six straight ACC championships from 2015 through 2020.
The Tigers also were largely left out of CBS Sports’ College Football Playoff predictions.
Fornelli believes Miami and SMU will be the only ACC teams to appear in the final CFP rankings, while Patterson expects only Miami to reach the final playoff field despite several ACC teams spending time in the rankings during the season. Brad Crawford and Chris Hummer also projected Miami and SMU into the playoff.
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Clemson will have chances to change that perception quickly.
One early test comes in Week 4 when the Tigers travel to Cal. The Bears received three votes from CBS Sports analysts as the ACC’s most underrated team, meaning that matchup could carry more weight than it might appear to on paper.
For Clemson, though, the larger storyline is clear.
The Tigers are entering another season without the automatic national respect they once received. CBS Sports’ predictions show that plenty of analysts still need to see Clemson prove it can return to the top tier of the ACC before buying back in.
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This article originally appeared on Clemson Wire: Is Clemson overrated again? CBS Sports analyst predictions believe so
