Clemson Tigers' Dabo Swinney Outlines Roster, Expectations for 2025 Season

As the summer continues to roll along, the Clemson Tigers are ready to gear up for a highly anticipated 2025 season, and head coach Dabo Swinney is no different. 

On the team’s local media day on Tuesday, he spoke to the press about the status of the team, being optimistic about the chance to not only defend its ACC title, but make a run for the national championship. 

“[We’ve] got a good football team that I think is built to compete for our league, and I think everything starts there,” Swinney said. “If you can do great things in your league, then you have opportunities beyond that. It all comes down to finishing up the summer the right way, having a great fall camp, and getting off to a good start.”

The team wasn’t fully healthy throughout the spring, with many starters going through offseason surgeries. However, the positive behind the setbacks, according to Swinney, is that a lot of younger players received starting reps throughout the spring. 

The head coach credited true freshman Brayden Jacobs, who was a mid-year enrollee, for taking snaps in place of starting left tackle Tristan Leigh, who was out for the majority of the spring with a left leg injury. 

“Brayden Jacobs got all those reps. Tristan Leigh, I mean, we’ve seen him play a lot, things like that,” Swinney said. “We were able to get a ton of work with some of the young guys . . .we were able to do what we needed to do to develop our team.” 

Now being in a “good spot” in terms of health, Swinney is excited to bring back a majority of pieces from last year’s offense, which returned 85% of its production. He echoes the idea of being “efficient” as a unit, which is how he saw success under quarterbacks like Trevor Lawrence and Deshaun Watson. 

“For us, when we’ve been at our best, we’ve had some type of balance in totality,” he said.  “Some games, it’s different. A lot of that is determined on who you’re playing, what their weaknesses are, what their strengths are, all that type of stuff. I think, at the end of the day, you’re looking for some type of balance, and when you look at our best offenses, that’s what you see.”

That offense starts with senior Cade Klubnik, who enters his final year as the starter and a top returner in the country. With a lot of noise of a potential national championship or a Heisman in the winter, Swinney calls it “a little fuel for him” while being confident that the outside noise won’t get to him. 

The Clemson head coach mentioned that Klubnik received negative comments at the beginning of last season, which was the same type of motivation.

“Last year this time they said he was terrible, so he had to block that out,” Swinney said. It’s the same thing, so of course, I see him as one of those guys because he did it last year. . .there’s always external narratives, external opinions, that’s just a part of what we do.”

While he returns with an arsenal of weapons at skill positions, Swinney is looking for him to build off the last two seasons. 

“He’s what you want,” he continued about his quarterback. “He’s committed in every sense of that word; he’s a leader, he’s developed and gotten better, but he’s got to take another step.”

Swinney has a tall task in the first week of the season, facing a LSU team that is still looking for its first Week 1 win under head coach Brian Kelly, who enters his fourth year. Combining the team with the excitement of a season with potential championships, the Clemson head coach said that his team is used to the pressure, seeing it every year. 

“We’ve been a target around here for a long time, whether they’re talking bad about you, talking good about you, it doesn’t matter,” Swinney said. “Expectations are always high here, always have been, and they’re all big.”

“If you don’t believe that,” he warned, “just lose one, you’ll find out how big they are at Clemson.”