For the first time since 2011, Clemson will begin a football season outside the AP Top 25 — a striking mile marker for a program that spent the intervening years winning championships, reaching College Football Playoffs and becoming one of the defining powers of its era.

For more than a decade, seeing Clemson’s name somewhere in the Associated Press preseason Top 25 became almost automatic.

In some years, the Tigers were near the bottom of the poll. In others, they were near the very top. Twice, Clemson entered a season ranked No. 1. Five times during the streak, the Tigers opened inside the top five.

But they were always there.

Until now.

The 2026 AP preseason poll was released Monday, Aug. 17, and for the first time since 2011, Clemson was not among the 25 teams listed. The Tigers were as close as a team could possibly come without making it: Clemson received 112 voting points, the most of any unranked team, finishing only five points behind No. 25 Missouri. In other words, Clemson is effectively 26th in the voting — the first team out.

That fact alone makes this one of the more significant preseason poll stories involving Clemson in years.

Because to understand what No. 26 means in August of 2026, you have to understand everything that happened between the last time Clemson was left out and now.

And what happened was one of the greatest sustained runs in modern college football.

The Last Time Clemson Was Left Out: 2011

There is an almost poetic symmetry to it.

Clemson was also unranked in the AP preseason poll entering 2011.

That team proceeded to change the trajectory of the program.

Led by Dabo Swinney, offensive coordinator Chad Morris and a young collection of playmakers that included Tajh Boyd, Sammy Watkins and DeAndre Hopkins, Clemson went 10-4, captured its first ACC championship since 1991 and finished No. 22 in the final AP poll.

It became the beginning of something enormous.

From 2011 through 2025, Clemson compiled a remarkable 168-38 record. The program won at least 10 games in 12 consecutive seasons from 2011-22, the third-longest streak of 10-win seasons in FBS history. Clemson then extended its run of nine-win seasons through 2024, giving the Tigers 14 consecutive seasons with at least nine victories.

And beginning with the 2012 preseason poll, Clemson simply stopped disappearing from the national conversation.

For 14 consecutive preseasons — 2012 through 2025 — Clemson was ranked by the AP.

That streak is now over.

Clemson’s AP Preseason Run, Year by Year

Here is what Clemson’s journey from 2011 to the present actually looks like:

Season	AP Preseason	Record	Final AP	What Happened
2011	NR	10-4	22	ACC champion; began Clemson’s rise
2012	14	11-2	11	Beat LSU in Chick-fil-A Bowl
2013	8	11-2	8	Beat Ohio State in Orange Bowl
2014	16	10-3	15	Finished with dominant bowl win over Oklahoma
2015	12	14-1	2	ACC champion; CFP finalist
2016	2	14-1	1	National champion; ACC champion
2017	5	12-2	4	ACC champion; CFP semifinalist
2018	2	15-0	1	National champion; ACC champion
2019	1	14-1	2	ACC champion; CFP finalist
2020	1	10-2	3	ACC champion; CFP semifinalist
2021	3	10-3	14	10-win season; Cheez-It Bowl champion
2022	4	11-3	13	ACC champion
2023	9	9-4	20	Won final five games; Gator Bowl champion
2024	14	10-4	14	ACC champion; returned to CFP
2025	4	7-6	NR	First sub-nine-win season since 2010
2026	NR — 26th in voting	—	—	First team outside Top 25

Clemson’s official historical records confirm the preseason rankings from 2011 through 2020, including the Tigers’ rise from unranked in 2011 to No. 14 in 2012, No. 8 in 2013, No. 16 in 2014, No. 12 in 2015, No. 2 in 2016, No. 5 in 2017, No. 2 in 2018 and No. 1 in both 2019 and 2020.

The Tigers then opened No. 3 in 2021, No. 4 in 2022 and No. 9 in 2023. Clemson opened No. 14 in 2024 and rocketed back to No. 4 in 2025, when the Tigers even received four first-place votes.

The final AP rankings through 2024 tell an equally impressive story: 22nd, 11th, eighth, 15th, second, first, fourth, first, second, third, 14th, 13th, 20th and 14th from 2011 through 2024.

That is why 2026 feels different.

Clemson Didn’t Just Stay Ranked — It Helped Define an Era

A 14-year preseason ranking streak would be impressive by itself.

What Clemson did with those expectations is what made the run historic.

The Tigers won ACC championships in 2011, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024 — nine league titles during the period. Clemson’s 2024 championship was its ninth victory in the ACC Championship Game.

Clemson also became one of the signature programs of the College Football Playoff era.

The Tigers reached the four-team CFP in six consecutive seasons from 2015 through 2020, a streak that remains the longest in the history of that format. They returned to the postseason tournament in 2024 when the field expanded to 12 teams, giving Clemson seven CFP appearances overall.

Within that run were four national championship-game appearances and two victories that forever changed Clemson’s place in college football history.

The 2016 Tigers defeated Alabama to win Clemson’s first national championship since 1981.

Two years later, the 2018 Tigers went 15-0, hammered Alabama 44-16 in the national championship game and became the first major college football team in the modern era to finish a season 15-0.

Clemson finished No. 1 in the AP poll in both championship seasons — 2016 and 2018 — and produced an extraordinary run of six consecutive top-five AP finishes from 2015 through 2020. Clemson’s own records place that six-season streak among the longest in AP poll history.

Think about what that means.

The last time Clemson entered a season unranked, the Tigers had not yet appeared in a College Football Playoff game because the College Football Playoff did not even exist.

Deshaun Watson had not enrolled at Clemson.

Trevor Lawrence was a middle-schooler.

Clemson had not won a national championship in three decades.

And “Clemsoning” was still being used nationally as shorthand for a program that couldn’t quite get over the hump.

What followed turned virtually all of that on its head.

From No. 12 to No. 1: The Transformation

The progression of the preseason rankings tells its own story.

Clemson entered 2012 at No. 14 and 2013 at No. 8. By 2015, the Tigers were preseason No. 12 — hardly viewed nationally as the eventual best team in the ACC, much less a national finalist.

Then Clemson went 14-1.

From there, perception caught up with performance.

The Tigers opened No. 2 in 2016 and won the national championship.

They opened fifth in 2017 and returned to the playoff.

They opened second in 2018 and went undefeated.

And by 2019, Clemson had climbed all the way to No. 1 in the preseason AP poll for the first time in school history. It remained No. 1 to open 2020 as well.

This wasn’t a program occasionally appearing in the Top 25.

Clemson had become one of the handful of programs against which the rest of college football was measured.

Between 2015 and 2020 alone, Clemson was almost permanently located near the top of the poll. The Tigers appeared at No. 1 in at least one AP poll in six consecutive seasons and at one point remained in the AP top five for 57 consecutive polls, the second-longest such streak in the poll’s history.

That is the standard against which today’s Clemson is inevitably compared.

Then Came the Gradual Retreat

The decline from Clemson’s historic peak wasn’t instantaneous.

Even after the CFP streak ended in 2021, Clemson still won 10 games.

Then it won 11 and another ACC championship in 2022.

Even the much-maligned 2023 season finished 9-4, with Clemson winning its final five games and ending No. 20 in the AP poll.

In 2024, Clemson returned to 10 wins, won the ACC championship in dramatic fashion against SMU and returned to the College Football Playoff.

That performance helped create enormous expectations for 2025.

Clemson opened last season No. 4 in the country — its best preseason ranking since 2022 — and even received four first-place votes.

Then came one of the most disappointing seasons of the Swinney era.

Clemson stumbled to 7-6, its worst record since the 2010 Tigers went 6-7. The Tigers’ extraordinary streak of 14 consecutive nine-win seasons ended. So did their 14-season streak of finishing in the AP Top 25.

The AP noted Clemson’s problems plainly when explaining its 2026 omission: the Tigers struggled to establish a running game, finished second-to-last in the ACC in third-down conversions and had a defense that failed to meet expectations.

For voters who had elevated Clemson to fourth in America only 12 months earlier, the reset was significant.

From No. 4 to outside the Top 25 in one year.

But This Isn’t Exactly a Vote of No Confidence

There is another side to the story.

Clemson isn’t buried somewhere in the “others receiving votes” category.

The Tigers are sitting directly outside the door.

No. 25 Missouri: 117 points.
Clemson: 112 points.

Five points.

That’s it.

AP explicitly described Clemson as the first team out, noting that a strong opening-week performance could put the Tigers right back into the rankings.

So although Clemson is technically unranked, calling the Tigers the functional No. 26 team is fair when describing the voting order. The AP itself noted Clemson was “just points away at No. 26.”

And Clemson won’t have to wait long for an opportunity to make voters reconsider.

The Tigers open the season Sept. 5 at No. 11 LSU.

Beat LSU in Baton Rouge, and Clemson’s stay outside the Top 25 could last exactly one poll.

Lose, and questions about whether the balance of power has permanently shifted away from Clemson will grow considerably louder.

An Interesting Name Returns at an Interesting Time

There is another fascinating connection between 2011 and 2026.

Chad Morris.

Morris arrived as Clemson’s offensive coordinator in 2011 and helped build the high-tempo offense that became the launching pad for Clemson’s ascent. He served as Clemson’s coordinator from 2011-14 before leaving to become the head coach at SMU.

Now he is back.

AP specifically cited Morris’ return when examining Clemson’s chances to rebound in 2026, while defensive coordinator Tom Allen enters his second season overseeing the defense.

So the last Clemson team to enter a season outside the AP Top 25 had Morris running its offense.

Fifteen years later, Clemson again enters a season outside the AP Top 25 — and Morris is once again charged with helping ignite the offense.

College football has a strange sense of symmetry sometimes.

What Clemson Accomplished Between Two Unranked Preseasons

Strip away individual seasons and look at the big picture.

Between the unranked preseason of 2011 and the unranked preseason of 2026, Clemson produced:

• 168 victories against only 38 losses from 2011-25
• Two national championships
• Four national championship-game appearances
• Seven College Football Playoff appearances
• Nine ACC championships
• 12 consecutive 10-win seasons from 2011-22
• 14 consecutive nine-win seasons from 2011-24
• 14 consecutive AP preseason Top-25 appearances from 2012-25
• 14 consecutive AP-ranked finishes from 2011-24
• Six consecutive AP top-five finishes from 2015-20
• Two preseason No. 1 rankings
• Two final No. 1 rankings

Clemson’s official records also show that the program won at least one postseason game — counting conference championship games, bowls and national championship games — in 14 consecutive seasons from 2011 through 2024, a streak Clemson identifies as the longest in FBS history.

That is the period that separates these two preseason omissions.

It is essentially the story of modern Clemson football.

No. 26 Isn’t a Death Sentence — It’s a Challenge

Preseason polls do not win championships.

Clemson’s own history proves that.

The 2011 Tigers began unranked and ended as ACC champions.

The 2015 Tigers began only No. 12 and came within one game of a national championship.

And preseason expectations can be spectacularly wrong in the other direction, too. Clemson entered 2025 at No. 4 before finishing 7-6.

So No. 26 tells us far more about perception than it does Clemson’s eventual ceiling.

But perception matters.

For nearly a decade, Clemson entered seasons with the assumption that it belonged among college football’s elite.

Now the Tigers enter 2026 needing to prove it again.

Perhaps that is the most interesting element of this entire story.

Clemson has spent years hearing questions about whether the dynasty was over, whether the sport had changed too dramatically, whether the Tigers had slipped behind programs more aggressive in the transfer-portal era and whether Swinney could construct another championship contender.

For much of that time, Clemson still had a number beside its name.

Now it doesn’t.

A Streak Ends. A New Story Begins.

The AP preseason poll isn’t the College Football Playoff rankings. It isn’t a championship trophy. It won’t determine whether Clemson wins eight games or 12.

But milestones matter because of what they represent.

And this one represents the closing of an extraordinary statistical run.

From 2012 through 2025, Clemson never began a football season outside the AP Top 25.

During those years, Clemson went from emerging ACC contender to national powerhouse, won two national championships, played for two more, became a fixture in the College Football Playoff and produced one of the most successful sustained stretches the sport has seen in the modern era.

Now, for the first time since the season that started all of it, Clemson begins on the outside looking in.

Not far outside.

Five voting points.

First team out.

Effectively No. 26.

But outside nonetheless.

And maybe that’s exactly what makes Clemson’s 2026 season so compelling.

For most of the last decade, the Tigers entered August carrying the burden of enormous expectations.

This time, they enter carrying something different:

Something to prove.

Fifteen years ago, an unranked Clemson team took that opportunity and launched the greatest era in program history.

Now another unranked Clemson team gets its turn.

What happens next will determine whether No. 26 represents the end of an era — or simply the starting point for Clemson’s next climb.