Clemson Football: Realistic expectations for the Tigers in 2023

Clemson football won the ACC championship last season and with Cade Klubnik taking over, what are realistic expectations for the 2023 season? 

Clemson football is one of the most interesting teams heading into the 2023 college football season. The Tigers haven’t really been elite the past two seasons and it’s hard to know if they are trending up, or trending down.

One thing we do know is that Clemson football is going to look different on offense in 2023. The Tigers are going to have a new full-time starter in Cade Klubnik. The 2022 five-star quarterback started the Orange Bowl last season and came on in the ACC championship game.

That proved that he was ready to be the Clemson football starting quarterback and D.J. Uiagalelei is now an Oregon State Beaver.

In addition to Klubnik, who is viewed as a better pure passer than Uiagalelei, Clemson football also made a big offseason hire on the coaching staff as Dabo Swinney hired Garrett Riley away from TCU. Riley is the brother of Lincoln Riley and could certainly be the spark Clemson needs.

Beyond that, the defense is going to be pretty good, like it always seems to be and Clemson football is going to be able to run the ball.

The defense will need to replace Myles Murphy and Bryan Breese, but Clemson football has been replacing NFL dudes on defense for years and there hasn’t been that much dropoff. The problem for the past two years has been offensive inconsistency.

Will Shipley will be back at running back and if the Tigers can finally put together an explosive offense, they could easily be a College Football Playoff contender.

Realistic expectations for Clemson football in 2023

I think Clemson is going to be in the mix for the playoff until late in the season, just like in 2022. The schedule doesn’t seem all that challenging but there are some tough road games.

South Carolina is on the road at the end of the season and the first game of the year is at Duke, which is sort of scary after what the Blue Devils did a year ago. There are also road games against Syracuse, North Carolina State, and Miami.

The game against Florida State is at home and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are also coming to Death Valley. I see Clemson winning one of those two games. We’ll also see Florida State and Clemson meet again for the ACC title.

I don’t necessarily see Clemson being good enough to reach the playoff, but they are right on the cusp and another ACC title is more than realistic.