Paul Finebaum has one college football contender ‘on life support’ for CFP

Dressed as either a Catholic deacon or the Grim Reaper, take your pick, Paul Finebaum joined Greg McElroy's show, Always College Football, where the duo discussed what another loss might mean for the Clemson Tigers against Georgia Tech this weekend.

"I think it would be pretty negative," answered Finebaum when McElroy asked about another Clemson slip-up. He further explained that while Dabo Swinney seemed to have figured out his own lane as a coach by retaining most of his talent year over year, despite crazy transfer portal changes, he may still come up short of Clemson's goals.

"You know, what’s bothersome if you’re a fan of Dabo is that so much of the ill will from the past came back," he added. "It looked like he had outsmarted the rest of college football with the team — and that all seemed to slip away."

Now, one more poor performance and a second loss through just three games could spell the end of the Tigers' championship hopes by mid-September.

"He would be literally on life support for the CFP with a loss this weekend," Finebaum notes. "This is really a big weekend for them. You can’t look much worse in the first two weeks, and after a lot of people picking them to win it all."

For Clemson to stay in the win column, Paul Finebaum believes quarterback Cade Klubnik must knock off whatever early-season rust he is dealing with.

You know, last Saturday, I don’t pay a lot of attention to games like that, even though it was scary for a Clemson fan, but I was really underwhelmed and really shocked, quite frankly, Greg, at how Klubnik played against LSU," he shared. "I know he’s had a propensity to struggle sometimes in the first game of the season. I don’t know why you do that at this point."

Fans watched Klubnik bounce back from a brutal 34-3 season-opening loss to Georgia and still thrive for much of last fall, so we all know he's capable of recapturing the magic. If he and the Tigers can't throw their fastball against Georgia Tech, as Finebaum notes, it's fair to wonder whether this club even has the CFP ceiling everyone expected.

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