Sports

Where Clemson ranks among all-time best college football programs

USA TODAY College Sports Wire · Jul 21, 2026 14:51 · 2 min read

Jan 7, 2019; Santa Clara, CA, USA; Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney celebrates with the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy on the podium after defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2019 College Football Playoff Championship game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Only a handful of schools are ahead of Clemson on this list of the best college football programs of all-time. See where the Tigers rank.

The Clemson Tigers may have slipped from annual national championship contender status in recent years, but the foundation that Dabo Swinney and others before him built still makes Clemson one of the best college football programs of all-time.

Clemson won its first national championship in 1981 under coach Danny Ford, then spent much of the 90s and early 2000s either out of the national spotlight or in the shadows of ACC rival Florida State.

Fast forward to 2008 when Swinney was named permanent head coach after Tommy Bowden's midseason dismissal. The Tigers have since gone on to win nine ACC championships, make seven trips to the College Football Playoff, and win two national championships while playing for two more.

Seasons like last year's 7-6 disappointment are easier to keep track of than the number of 10-win seasons Clemson has experienced under Swinney (13 total). And in a conference as perpetually wide-open as the ACC has been since Clemson's run of six straight conference titles from 2015-20, the Tigers have as good a chance or better at rebounding.

In the meantime, USA TODAY Sports' staff of college football analysts -- Paul Myerberg, Blake Toppmeyer, Eddie Timanus and Jordan Mendoza -- unveiled their annual rankings of the sport's top 25 programs. Clemson came in at No. 13, one spot below Penn State and one spot ahead of the Florida Gators.

"To paraphrase a mantra from another league, football just means more at Clemson among the ACC’s founders," Timanus wrote. "The Tigers’ return to national prominence in the 2010s with two national titles under Dabo Swinney is just a small part of the program’s rich legacy that includes 24 conference titles and nearly 800 wins. A downturn in the past three years has seen Clemson slip from its position near the top."

All told, Clemson has 22 ACC championships, plus six from from its days before the ACC was founded. The Tigers have 815 all-time victories, according to the school's record book, and have appeared in 51 bowl games. The Tigers first fielded a football team way back in 1896, winning their first game on October 31, 1896, 14-6 against Furman.

A trio of Clemson's ACC peers and rivals made USA TODAY Sports' list. The Miami Hurricanes are the only team ranked ahead of the Tigers at No. 9 overall. Miami won three national championships in the 80s, another in 1991 and its fifth in 2001. Florida State fell to No. 18 in the rankings, and the SMU Mustangs grabbed the final spot at No. 25.