College Gameday Analysts Point to Loss of 'Spirit,' 'Hunger' Amidst Clemson Struggles

The Clemson Tigers have performed as one of the most disappointing teams in the country through the first four weeks of the season, sitting at 1-3 after losing to Syracuse last weekend.

ESPN college football analysts Rece Davis, Pete Thamel, and Dan Wetzel broke down Clemson’s struggles on Monday’s edition of the College Gameday Podcast, revealing potential explanations and reasons for the Tigers’ underwhelming start to 2025.

“I don’t believe that there are proverbial or internal issues at Clemson, I’m not saying that,” Davis said. “But how they play on the field is they play like a team that doesn’t really like each other. Not that they dislike each other, but they’re sort of ambivalent about each other. There’s not that stinger, the spirit, the hunger. That’s what’s missing.”

“I think Dabo can fix it,” Davis added. “Maybe this is just a bad mix of ingredients, or not a championship mix.” 

Heading into the season, the vast majority recognized Clemson’s roster as one of the nation’s best, and many predicted the Tigers to legitimately compete for the national championship.

However, despite the loaded future NFL talent scattered all over the field, Clemson hasn’t looked like the normal Clemson that fans are accustomed to under Dabo Swinney. The Tigers find themselves with three losses after just four outings, and their path to the College Football Playoff is about as narrow as it can get. Thus, Thamel doesn’t believe Clemson’s underwhelming start is salvageable.

“I think the most worrisome part for Clemson is that I don’t see an ingredient that can save the casserole this season… I don’t know how you save this Clemson season,” Thamel said. “Again, you talk about ingredients, right? They have a million-dollar-plus quarterback, they have, from three years ago, the offensive coordinator who was going to rev them up after Brandon Streeter’s offense kind of hit the funk. You can argue that they’ve gone forward – they had a spell at the end of last season, but they’ve regressed.”

“It doesn’t seem like the Garrett Riley experiment is going to work past this season. They bring in Tom Allen and they got absolutely filleted by Syracuse on Saturday… it seems to me that – there are scheme issues, for sure – but it seems to me there’s a spirit issue, and that’s hard to revive.”

Thamel continues by expanding on the dominant squads of Tigers that Clemson has seen at the peak of its dynasty, and that the competitive fight that previous teams have boasted may no longer be present.

“There’s an edge that they had. Victory is inevitable,” Thamel said. “How many close ACC games that they’ve had over the years where you know Clemson was going to find a way to win at the end? And there was nothing inevitable about Clemson [against Syracuse]. They had the [weather] break, remember, and they came back and they just lacked a spirit to them, and that’s hard to diagnose. That is very difficult to push forward.”

Although the offense hasn’t lived up to its expectations, Clemson’s defense was the main disappointment of Saturday’s loss to Syracuse. The Tigers allowed 435 total yards of offense, with 157 of those on the ground and 278 through the air. And, according to Thamel, Clemson’s secondary is the most prominent area of concern for this defense.

“If you look at this roster, Will Heldt, the transfer from Purdue, has been good. Peter Woods, the interior defensive lineman, has been good. T.J. Parker, the defensive end, has not played well. In the secondary, they just got Khalil Barnes back, but that’s where it was glaring to me – they were overmatched… Clemson is playing with their food.”

A lot of heat from the media has been directed towards Swinney, who has had a few lengthy explanations in recent press conferences on his expectations for the program and essentially saying that Clemson can fire him if the university wants to stop winning.

Wetzel claims that he likely won’t get sent on his way anytime soon, but Swinney needs to rediscover and re-instill the championship-level mindset that once made Clemson one of the premier programs week in and week out.

“I don’t know the problem that is involved in the Clemson football program, and I’m sure Dabo is trying to figure it out, but that is his job to figure it out. No one wants him fired; he shouldn’t leave, but he needs to figure out what they lost as that edge,” Wetzel said. “I saw a team that got pushed around by Syracuse – that got out-hustled. I’ve seen Clemson lose games, I’ve seen them lose recently because they didn’t have enough talent. You really don’t see them get pushed, and beaten up, and beaten by a hungrier team.”

“I don’t know the issue that is going on at Clemson, but my guess is that is some of it. They need to go back and find that old hunger.”