ESPN’s Josh Pate Sounds the Alarm on Clemson’s Struggles and Future

On this past week's edition of Josh Pate's College Football Show, host Josh Pate broke down the Clemson Tigers' disappointing loss to Syracuse, zeroing in on the Tigers' lack of effort and urgency.

He questioned Clemson's fight, wondered how a team with so much experience could look so unprepared, and raised concerns about whether Dabo Swinney has lost the edge that once made him a pioneer in college football. 

For Pate, Clemson's struggles aren't just about one loss; they're a sign of a program in danger of drifting further from the sport's elite. And in his eyes, the evidence was right there on the field.

"They played harder. They were more prepared. I had former Clemson players texting me throughout the game like, 'Look how more prepared they are than us,' and full disclosure here, these are people who would ride to the ends of the earth for that Tiger Paw and Dabo Swinney, but they were stating the obvious,” Pate said. “A team, yet again, came into Clemson's building and just pushed them around. And we're not talking about vintage Alabama, Kirby's Georgia and Ryan Day's Ohio State. We're talking about Louisville last year, an LSU team with a slightly hobbled quarterback to start the season and Syracuse."

Pate reminded listeners that Clemson's struggles go beyond a single bad game, reflecting a pattern seen in preseason favorites that fail to meet expectations, most notably Florida State's disastrous 2024 season. 

The Seminoles entered last year as a top-10 team and defending ACC champions, only to collapse to a 2-10 record, their worst season since 1974.

That historic downturn emphasized the dangers of complacency and poor execution, which we've seen all season from the Tigers. Pate warned that Clemson, despite its veteran roster, could be heading down a similar path.

"We've got case study after case study of teams imploding and not coming close to fulfilling preseason expectations. Florida State did it last year,” he compared. “Here's what's the dagger to the chest [for Clemson fans], this team is homegrown. This is a completely homegrown, veteran leadership, returning starters all over the place, multi-year coaching staff continuity type of Clemson team. It's not quite dead on arrival, but it's pretty close. But as the Clemson standard goes, it's dead on arrival… This season is probably going to be a wash."

Pate finished off the segment by critiquing the long-term direction of Clemson's program under head coach Dabo Swinney, arguing that the Tigers' struggles aren't just about personnel or preparation; they reflect a coach who has fallen behind in the modern-day landscape of College Football.

He recalled the vision Swinney laid out over a decade ago and suggested that while those principles were once a staple of the program, they now seem absent in 2025.

"I wrote down some terms that came out of [Dabo Swinney's] mouth 10 years ago…' Reinvent, reinvest, reset, learn and grow.' I'm not saying he's forgotten it, I'm saying I don't see a whole lot of it around there, and it's mandatory,” he stressed. “Dabo Swinney, once ahead of the curve in College Football, then riding the wave, has now had the wave hit him in the face, and he's got salt water in his eyes, and there's another one coming. That's how this works: you get battered when you sit still in the ocean. Clemson's just sitting still in the ocean and they're getting battered."