Greg McElroy doesn’t believe Clemson football’s biggest obstacle this season is a lack of talent. Instead, he thinks the Tigers are trying to replace too much talent from a team that already fell well short of expectations.
During a recent episode of Always College Football, the ESPN analyst predicted Clemson will finish with fewer than 10 victories in 2026. His reasoning centered on what happened after last season’s disappointing 7-6 campaign.
While Clemson tied a school record by producing nine NFL Draft picks, McElroy argued that losing that much talent makes it difficult to expect a major turnaround. In his view, the Tigers weren’t held back by a shortage of NFL-caliber players, they simply failed to maximize the roster they already had.
“I
think Clemson finishes under 10 wins again,” McElroy said. “So that would be the first back-to-back sub-10s since ‘09 and 2010. So here’s how I get there, it’s not that Dabo Swinney didn’t dodge it, he said it perfectly. Clemson really underachieved last year. That’s his phrase, that’s not mine. And here’s the detail that everybody quotes, Clemson tied a program record with nine draft picks off that 7-6 football team. Everybody used to say that the talent was fine, so Clemson will be fine. So run it all the way forward, though, a 7-6 team that had nine draft picks, then those nine picks are gone, and the thing that actually went wrong is the thing that stayed. You don’t fix a year of underachieving by taking out your nine best players.”
McElroy also pointed to Clemson’s schedule as another reason he expects the Tigers to fall short of double-digit wins. A season opener at LSU followed by an early matchup with Miami leaves little room for error against teams he believes are capable of making the College Football Playoff.
“And you look at the schedule, they open at LSU, Week 1, Death Valley, Lane Kiffin’s debut in front of a crowd that’s waited six years for something really special to happen,” McElroy said. “Then Miami comes to Clemson on Oct. 3, and Miami just played for a national championship. That’s two playoff-caliber teams inside your first six games, one on the road with a reshaped roster.”
If Clemson proves him wrong, McElroy said it will likely be because Swinney has made a habit of engineering bounce-back seasons. He noted the Tigers rebounded from a nine-win campaign just two years ago by winning the ACC and reaching the College Football Playoff, and he believes Swinney’s willingness to embrace the transfer portal this offseason gives Clemson a better chance than in previous years.
Former Clemson football star reportedly set to join an ACC rival
— Clemson Wire (@Clemson_Wire) July 31, 2026
📸 Ken Ruinard, USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con https://t.co/ZOhTYBcOcI pic.twitter.com/wJz4nck3tK
“Now the case for Clemson, and it’s not nothing, they did exactly this in 2024,” McElroy said. “They went 9-4, then 10 wins and an ACC title. And Swinney kind of broke his own tradition. He actually went to the portal for the first time. A man publicly reversing a position that he has defended for years. So my verdict is if they don’t get to 10, and if I’m wrong, it’s because Dabo is still Dabo, and I underestimated a program that has built a career out of this exact bounce-back situation.”
A sub-10-win season would also end one of the more consistent runs in college football. Clemson has avoided consecutive seasons below the 10-win mark since 2009 and 2010, making this season a chance to either extend that streak or see it come to an end.
Contact us at @Clemson_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news, notes and opinions.
This article originally appeared on Clemson Wire: ESPN analyst believes Clemson’s long time 10 win season streak will end
