Clemson’s latest loss didn’t just knock the Tigers down a peg. It got met with a kind of college football shrug that ESPN contributor Josh Pate thinks says everything about where the program stands now.
Virginia Tech walked into Clemson and left with a 20-16 win Saturday, its first victory over the Tigers since 2007. For Pate, the most telling part wasn’t the score itself. It was how little buzz followed it.
“It’s kind of like people yawned at it because it doesn’t even mean anything to beat Clemson anymore,” Pate said on Josh Pate’s College Football Show.
The Hokies finished the job with a bold call from coach James Franklin. With less than two minutes left and trailing 16-13, Franklin passed on a tying field goal on fourth-and-1 at the Clemson 5. Quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer then hit tight end Luke Reynolds for the winning touchdown.
“It did enter my mind to kick the field goal,” Franklin said.
The decision wrapped up bowl eligibility for Virginia Tech at 6-2, a sharp turn from last year’s 3-9 finish. Pate made sure to give the Hokies their due while putting the spotlight squarely back on Clemson.
“Huge credit to James Franklin getting this done in Year 1. They’re 6-2 right now.
Good for them. Bad for Clemson.
Really bad for Clemson,” Pate said.
The Tigers dropped to 4-3 after already taking lopsided losses to LSU and Miami earlier in the year, and Pate sees the schedule offering plenty more trouble. Clemson still has road trips to Florida State, Syracuse and Duke, plus home games against Georgia Tech and South Carolina.
“My guess is they’ll lose two more games minimum, and they already have three losses,” Pate said. “So we’re looking at a five-loss, maybe a six-loss season for Clemson.”
That would extend a stretch that has already reached six straight seasons with at least three losses. Pate said that decline hits different for anyone who remembers Clemson’s championship peak after the 2016 and 2018 seasons.
“If you’re 18 years old watching that, maybe it doesn’t punch you in the face like it does someone who’s lived through Clemson being bad, then Clemson being elite and now them falling all the way back to earth,” Pate said.
Even so, Pate didn’t go as far as saying a coaching move is coming. He pointed to the contract and the legacy attached to Dabo Swinney as major complications.
“You ask yourself, with the contractual situation plus the legacy situation, how do you handle it?” Pate said.
“I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t know.”
Swinney is under contract through 2031 on a 10-year, $115 million extension. His buyout this season is $57 million, with no offset if he takes another job.
After the game, Swinney blamed his staff for the Tigers’ problems, following a first half in which Clemson managed just 94 yards. “It’s all coaching,” he said at halftime.
“That’s 100% coaching. Pitiful.”
Clemson’s next chance to stop the slide comes Oct. 31 at Florida State. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. ET on ACC Network.
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Still, the win did not erase the biggest concern hanging over this offense. The ground game never really got going, and Virginia Tech had to work around a rushing attack that struggled to provide balance against Clemson. With both passing scores coming through the tight ends, the Hokies showed they can manufacture points in a pinch, but the larger question is whether they can find more consistency on the ground when the pressure rises again. [Read more 🡒]
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SMU, Stanford, Miami and Virginia are still on the schedule, and the Hokies will need more than just momentum to navigate it cleanly. The concerns have not disappeared, especially on offense and in the middle quarters where games have sometimes slipped away from their control, so the next month will test whether Virginia Tech can keep winning while tightening up the details that have kept the picture from looking fully finished. [Read more 🡒]