Clemson HC Dabo Swinney Says 2025 Team is Similar to 2016 National Championship Squad

The Clemson Tigers remember the 2016 season, which saw the team hoist its first national championship under head coach Dabo Swinney.

However, that team struggled early, sliding by Auburn in Week 1 and then winning a scary matchup at home against Troy a week later. That’s exactly the team that Swinney sees in the 2025 Clemson Tigers, believing that the outside noise haunts them early.

“I feel like I’m living 2016 all over again,” Swinney said on Tuesday. “Honestly. In fact, I went back and looked at my notes from 2016 after the Troy game, just curious, and it was like I could’ve just walked into the team meeting with the same comments. Different reasons, but same comments. The only difference is we made one more play than Auburn in the opener.”

Almost every facet of the squad can be transferable to this season. The quarterbacks, Deshaun Watson and Cade Klubnik, are both Heisman hopefuls and expected to be high on NFL mock drafts. Standout receivers like Antonio Williams and Mike Williams are back. Both the offense and defense are experienced.

Swinney recalls the 2016 team and how they let the outside noise of a potential national championship get to them.

“Your quarterback is the first pick; he’s the Heisman,” Swinney said. “You got all these guys back, you got Mike Williams back, you got Artavis [Scott], you got Ray-Ray [McCloud], you got Deon [Cain], you got [Hunter] Renfrow, you got all of these guys and all these experienced guys up front. These guys on defense [too], and you’re just going to press play right to Tampa. That’s how it felt with that team.”

Translating that to this team, it’s arguably the first time that the term “national championship contenders” has been legitimate with this new team. Swinney calls on legendary Alabama head coach Nick Saban with his term of “getting the rat poison”, listening to the outside noise and the expectations with the team.

“That was the first time that they got all the rat poison, and that’s kind of this group,” Swinney said. “This group ain’t had the rat poison, they’ve just had the ‘you suck poison’, and this is the first time this group has really had to manage that, and I don’t think some of them have managed it well, obviously. Just being real, and I would say the same thing about that [2016] group.”

The team’s first-half effort against Troy last weekend was similar to the same matchup nearly nine years before, but Swinney commends the team for continuing to fight with their backs against the wall, scoring 27 unanswered points in the win.

“That’s a frustrating situation to be in. You saw the grit of our team, the heart of our team, the resilience of these guys, courage, you have to have some courage to fight back in those situations, so I think you learned a lot about the mentality of our team.”

As the Tigers go into ACC play this weekend, there are fixes that are needed across the roster, especially with the offense. Although Clemson recorded five straight drives with a score against the Trojans, there are still things that need to change.

“We continue like this, we ain’t going to win many games,” Swinney said. “We've got to get in rhythm on offense. We got the dudes, and we got to do a better job as coaches and get in rhythm. But we’re doing a lot of good things too.”

It’s a long season, as Swinney laments, but if the team figures things out and follows the head coach’s mantra of “just keep playing”, Clemson can see similar success to that of the 2016 team, potentially raising a national championship.

“I’ve been doing this a long time; it doesn’t always go perfectly,” he said. “I’ve had teams that go off to a great start that struggled a little bit in camp, and I've had some teams [that were] great in camp and struggled. Again, who you play matters. . we’re battle tested, but we’ve got to get better.”