Granted, it’s been a while.
With six straight College Football Playoff appearances — and just three losses over the previous three seasons — Clemson has fallen well short of expectations this season after starting it as a top-5 team. Sitting at 2-2 overall and 1-1 in ACC play heading into Saturday’s home game against Boston College, the 19th-ranked Tigers have lost two games before October for the first time in seven years and have plummeted outside the top 10 of the national rankings for the first time since 2015.
It’s made for more uncertainty and more questions than Swinney has faced about his team in quite some time, but Clemson’s head coach made a point during his weekly press conference Tuesday to remind everyone his program has actually been here before.