Is Clemson done?

Clemson entered last Saturday as arguably the hottest team in the country.

The Tigers touched Howard’s Rock and ran down the hill into a packed Death Valley as winners of their last six since their opening week loss to Georgia. To make matters better, they were facing Louisville. A team the Tigers had not lost to in their seven previous meetings and were favored comfortably to win.

But all of that went up in smoke as fans began leaving Memorial Stadium well before the final whistle as the Cardinals had a commanding 26-7 lead entering the fourth quarter.

And when said final whistle was blown, a 33-21 defeat could represent Clemson’s ACC and National Championship hopes leaving early as well.

The Athletic’s playoff projection now has Clemson as at a 26 percent chance to make the new 12-team format and while there is still the possibility the Tigers do, they are going to have to be perfect the rest of the way.

But it will not be easy, as Clemson will take a trip to Lane Stadium to face Virginia Tech this Saturday. The Tigers will likely be the favorites to win, but the Hokies did take conference leader Miami to the final play as they almost pulled off a hail mary to secure the upset.

After that, the Tigers continue their road trip to face 7-1 Pitt. The Panthers are licking their own wounds after getting blown out 48-25 by the other conference leader SMU. This game is pivotal for both teams because the winner would put themselves in third place in the conference and in prime position to secure an ACC Championship berth if Miami or SMU were to slip up in the coming weeks.

The loser on the other hand can kiss their playoff hopes goodbye as a second conference loss would all but certainly put them out of contention.

Those games are also the last games in-conference for Clemson. So if the Tigers can win them both, their following games against The Citadel and South Carolina will not matter at least to those standings if they drop a third game.

Speaking of their hated rival, there is nothing more the Gamecocks would want to do than to deliver the knockout punch to the staggering Tigers. And they are certainly capable of doing so. They just got done storming the field after pulling away from No. 10 Texas A&M and took other ranked teams like LSU and Alabama to the brink of an upset as well.

It was also this same Gamecock program that upset Clemson two years ago to end their playoff chances that year as well.

But what does the Louisville loss say about the current state of Clemson?

The failure to adapt would be the main answer.

Aside from the service academies, Clemson is the only FBS school to have not added talent through the transfer portal and head coach Dabo Swinney tends to dodge the topic altogether.

Now that goes without mistaking the fact that the Tigers have always recruited well. Swinney has been able to field two national championship rosters before, and the Tigers are set to bring in another top-20 class in next year’s recruiting rankings.

But it is clear now with the current state of the sport that the transfer portal has to be utilized along with recruiting to help build the best roster possible.

Miami, who is at the top of the conference, has 15 players on their roster that came in as transfers this year. Louisville, who Clemson just lost to, had 32 players transfer into their program which is the second most in the country behind Colorado.

And while most programs will not turn over a roster that much, current top 10 teams like Ohio State, Tennessee and Notre Dame, all brought in less than 10 recruits apiece. This shows that recruiting still is the way to go to build a roster, but using the portal can help sure up its foundation for the season.

Perhaps things could have gone better in the last couple of years if Swinney caved in and utilized it. Clemson is seemingly slipping down the championship contender ladder with every passing year and if they do not find an answer as to why soon, it will likely be too late.

But for now, they still have hope. And we will see if they can use that to still make another run at a championship.

Chase Fisher is a first-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email ctf5198@psu.edu.