Joel Klatt compares Clemson, Dabo Swinney to Texas under Mack Brown

After losing to the Georgia Bulldogs by 31 points in Week 1, the Clemson Tigers and head coach Dabo Swinney are looking for answers. Meanwhile, there are concerns from outside the program that the Tigers won’t be able to compete for a national championship like they used to under Swinney.

College football analyst Joel Klatt seems to be someone who isn’t confident in Clemson moving forward. In fact, as he explained on The Joel Klatt Show, he sees a resemblance between the end of the Texas Longhorns dynasty overseen by Mack Brown and Clemson under Swinney.

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“This dynasty actually reminds me a lot, I mean a lot, of a dynasty that started to taper off in 2009, 10, and 11,” Joel Klatt said. “Isn’t it more plausible that Clemson is going through exactly what Texas went through?”

In both cases, the Texas and Clemson dynasties were able to win national championships and compete for others. Also, in both cases, the teams were led by some of the best quarterbacks in college football. At Texas, those quarterbacks were Vince Young and Colt McCoy.

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“Hear me out. Mack Brown built something so special at Texas. He really did, and they were winning 10 ball games and they played for national championships. They won a national championship. Then they played for another national championship. Had another year where they feel like they were robbed out of playing for a national championship. I mean, they were right there. They were a preeminent team for about six, seven, eight years. They were. The sport ran through Texas. In a lot of ways, the sport ran through Alabama and Clemson,” Klatt said.

“In that six, seven, eight years, what was it about Texas that was just so elite? Well, at the beginning they built this roster that was incredible…they had this guy named Vince Young and he took this really good roster and won a national championship. Then after that, they had another really good quarterback and boy he was generational in a lot of respects in terms of college quarterbacks and Colt McCoy took them and really should’ve played for two national championships. Played for one and he got injured. But what happened at the tail end of Colt McCoy’s career?”

The 2009 season would be McCoy’s last at Texas. That year, he led Texas to the BCS National Championship, losing after McCoy was knocked out of the game with an injury. Head coach Mack Brown lasted another four years at Texas after that, failing to win more than nine games in any single season.

“He was carrying that organization and that program. When he walked out the door, they thought that had an answer because Garrett Gilbert played pretty well in the national championship game against Alabama,” Klatt said. “Guess what happened? Garrett Gilbert wasn’t the answer and they didn’t have the answer on the roster and they couldn’t find the answer for years. So, what happened at Texas is they missed on quarterbacks. They had two elite quarterbacks take them on this wild ride that was at the top of college football and because they got complacent, their roster slipped, the quarterback masked it, and then when that quarterback walked out the door, bam. Reality hit.”

Between Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence, Clemson won a pair of national championships. They’ve since been replaced by DJ Uiagalelei and Cade Klubnik, neither of which has played to the level of the previous Clemson signal callers.

“That’s exactly what’s happening to Clemson and it was so apparent to me as that game was playing out against Georgia, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘What happened? What is it?’ Is it Transfer Portal? Kind of, maybe. That’s what everyone wants to say about it but it’s not really Transfer Portal. What’s happened at Clemson, they missed on quarterbacks. When you get five-star quarterbacks and they don’t pan out, that sets you back and it sets you back in a big way…they missed,” Klatt said.

“We thought [DJ Uiagalelei] was going to be that guy because of the way he played for an injured Trevor Lawrence against Notre Dame…then he became the quarterback and we’re like, ‘Actually, it’s not really that. I think it’s more Cade Klubnik.’ And Cade Klubnik is the guy and he’s the star and guess what, it’s not panning out. Maybe it will and I hope it does, because Cade I think is a really good player and maybe that’s a team that can still develop and go on and have a really good year in what is unquestionably a soft league, and I hope that’s the case, but right now this looks exactly like what happened at the University of Texas.”

Since those championships, however, head coach Dabo Swinney has struggled to find a replacement and the Tigers have lost at least three games in each of the last three seasons.

“The roster is not what it was under Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence…[Lawrence] was masking issues while those older players graduated,” Klatt said. “So, by the time Trevor walked out the door, Clemson was not Clemson just like by the time Colt McCoy walked out the door Texas was not Texas. This, to me, is the parallel and this is what Dabo is fighting. The roster is not where it needs to be. When you miss on quarterbacks, this is what happens. This is what happens and I feel like we’ve seen this play out before. I feel like history is repeating itself right before our eyes.”

Clemson and Dabo Swinney will look to figure things out quickly in 2024. That starts with a Week 2 game against App State.