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Clemson University’s football program has finished each of the last twelve seasons in the national rankings – including capturing a pair of national championships in 2016 and 2018 and notching runner-up finishes in 2015 and 2019.
From 2015-2020, Clemson was a perennial top five team and national championship contender.
This season, though, the Tigers are on the outside looking in when it comes to the College Football Playoffs (CFP) – even if you look at the expanded 12-team format head coach Dabo Swinney has taken to criticizing.
Swinney’s program – which failed to win ten games last season for the first time since 2010 – was ranked No. 14 by The Associated Press in its 2024 preseason poll, which was released Monday (August 12, 2024). That’s identical to the ranking the Tigers received last week from the USLBM coaches’ poll.
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Both preseason polls were dominated by the recently expanded SEC and Big Ten conferences. The SEC’s newest additions – Texas and Oklahoma – entered the rankings at No. 4 and No. 16 in both polls, respectively. Meanwhile two of the Big Ten’s new teams – Oregon and Southern Cal – were ranked No. 3 and No. 23 in both polls, respectively.
All told, the SEC boasted nine ranked teams compared to six for the Big Ten. The upstart Big XII had five ranked programs while the ACC – which is struggling to keep its members in the fold – had four teams ranked, although two of those teams are actively trying to leave the conference.
At the top of the heap (for now)? Georgia, which finished No. 3/4 last year after winning national championships in 2021 and 2022. The Bulldogs were a unanimous No. 1 pick in both polls. Defending national champion Michigan – which lost head coach Jim Harbaugh to the Los Angeles Chargers – opened the 2024 campaign ranked No. 8.
In addition to a season-opening tilt against the top-ranked Bulldogs in Atlanta, Clemson has No. 22/24 NC State (September 21 at home) and No. 10 Florida State (October 5 in Tallahassee) on its schedule. As of this writing, no other Tiger opponents are ranked.
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South Carolina – which received no votes in the AP poll and a modest ten votes in the coaches’ poll – has a much harder row to hoe than Clemson, as I’ve previously reported.
Of the Gamecocks’ twelve 2024 opponents, seven are ranked: No. 5 Alabama (October 12 at Tuscaloosa), No. 6 Ole Miss (October 5 at home), No. 11 Missouri (November 16 at home), No. 12/13 LSU (September 14 at home), No. 14 Clemson (November 30 in Clemson), No. 16 Oklahoma (October 19 in Norman) and No. 20 Texas A&M (November 2 at home).
With the exception of Florida, I can’t think of a team that has a tougher 2024 slate than the Gamecocks. That’s going to make it incredibly hard on fourth-year head coach Shane Beamer to avoid the hot seat – unless his team can recapture some of that upset magic it enjoyed two years ago (see here and here). South Carolina, incidentally, has not been ranked in a preseason poll since 2014 – and hasn’t been ranked period since the final poll of the 2022 season.
Obviously, preseason rankings are just that… preseason. After a month of football, expect to see several shifts in the tectonics of this new terra firma of the collegiate landscape we find ourselves covering.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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2 comments
Why would Beamer be on the hot seat? What other coach would want this job, the NCAA has guaranteed USC will be nothing but a feeder program for bigger programs. The best thing the BOT could do is bulldoze that big lot down in the industrial park and put up more student housing.
With this schedule, a 6-6 season with a bowl bid would be a very successful season. We can’t expect too much from a women’s basketball school.