CLEMSON, S.C. — Cade Klubnik used to be battered and defeated, his pants splattered with blood stains, his fingers lined in cuts and scrapes and scratches. He’d been collision — crispy and many times — by way of Florida Environment’s protection, together with a sack that changed into a game-defining fumble cure for a landing, however what he saved fascinated with used to be that one choice in extra time, to take a look at of a run name and right into a doomed display cross.

“We’re really, really good but two tough breaks,” Klubnik stated. “We’ve just got to finish that game. We were so close.”

A large snip spanned part of Xavier Thomas’ base lip, however his phrases then Clemson’s 31-24 extra time loss to the Seminoles have been sunlit.

“It sucks,” Thomas stated. “It came down to a couple plays in a game we know we should’ve won. We gave it to them.”

Mentor Dabo Swinney arrived on the podium postgame dressed, as familiar, in a smartly pressed swimsuit, and gave a beleaguered postscript that has felt solely too familiar in recent times.

“That, honestly, was probably as tough a loss as I’ve ever been a part of,” Swinney stated, just a tiny pleasure from his epilogue following the Duke loss, suggesting it used to be the “strangest game I’ve ever been a part of.”

That is the aftermath of a contest that felt such a lot larger, so a lot more significant than the general ranking steered.

On paper, it used to be a nail-biter, and within Clemson’s bank room, the consensus used to be that this used to be a win the Tigers let slip thru their palms.

Within the grander scheme of the school soccer hierarchy, alternatively, Saturday felt like an respectable converting of the safeguard, the day when Florida Environment’s ascendancy intersected with Clemson’s gradual abate.

It’s conceivable it used to be each. Or neither. Possibly it doesn’t subject. Possibly the purpose is that the dialog is occurring in any respect.

“We’re not entitled to win the ACC each year,” Swinney stated. “We didn’t win it in ’21, and a lot of y’all said we were done. We came back and won it last year.” After, including mockingly, “I think. Didn’t we win it last year?

“We don’t take a seat round appearing like we’re the supremacy crew. We’ve simply were given to compete, display up, do our very best to constitute this college with elegance. Lately wasn’t our age. I don’t take a look at it as a referendum. I simply take a look at it as we misplaced the sport.”

Here’s where Clemson stands, four weeks into the 2023 season:

The Tigers are 2-2 for the second time in the past three years.

They’re 0-2 in ACC play for the first time since 2010, Swinney’s second year on the job and the prelude to a decade of consecutive 10-win seasons.

They’ve lost four of their past seven games overall, including to rivals South Carolina and Florida State.

They’re at the center of a growing storm of frustration amid a fan base increasingly concerned the modern age of college football has overwhelmed Swinney’s famed culture, that Clemson’s reluctance to embrace the transfer portal, its people-over-players approach, its focus on loyalty, its vision that expands well beyond mere talent acquisition, is somehow now a liability.

And yet, to watch Clemson play Florida State on Saturday was hardly an indictment of a program teetering on the brink. It was, instead, one of the toughest performances the Tigers have turned in since their last national title in 2018.

“I’m hoping everyone noticed what this crew is truly in a position to,” Klubnik said. “It’s one play games and it’s a distinct ballgame. We performed truly excellent in opposition to the Deny. 4 crew within the nation. We noticed what we’re virtue and on the finish of the age, we simply wish to end.”

This is reality for Clemson right now — not a state of panic or a return to glory, but rather some uncomfortable purgatory. The Tigers no longer appear to routinely be an elite, national title contender, but they’re far too good to blow up the whole system. Last year’s loss to South Carolina, this year’s defeat at Duke, Saturday’s dagger — they’re all Ls in the box score that, quite reasonably, Swinney can define as outliers. Heck, even the 31-14 blowout loss to Tennessee in last year’s Capital One Orange Bowl comes with the caveat that had 109 more yards and 14 more first downs but fizzled out repeatedly in the red zone.

The numbers speak to how close Clemson really is to a completely different narrative. In the four losses over its past seven games, the Tigers outgained the opposition by at least 48 yards three times, and their total yards margin in those four games is +196. They’ve blown multiple double-digit leads. They’ve scored just eight touchdowns on 17 total red-zone trips. They’ve missed 5 of 8 field goal tries, including a chip shot that might’ve won the game Saturday, kicked by a player who’d been living in another city just a week earlier.

After Saturday’s loss, Swinney lamented the fumble-turned-touchdown that signaled a serious shift in the game’s dynamic as evidence of the bad luck his team has endured. In those four losses since November, Clemson is minus-five in turnover margin. Oh, how different it might’ve been.

But maybe that’s too fine a line to walk. Clemson is actually even in turnover margin over its past seven — as well as since the start of the supposed decline in 2021. The Tigers haven’t had bad luck over a large sample size, only in the margins.

For so long, Clemson dominated those margins. From 2015 to 2020 — the glory years in Death Valley — Clemson was an astounding 24-6 when losing the turnover margin. In the past three seasons, it’s 7-6. From 2015 to 2020, Clemson was 18-4 in one-possession games, an elite mark. Over the past three seasons, it’s a more mundane 8-4. During those glory years, the Tigers were 13-7 after being tied or trailing in the second half, the third-best mark in the country. Since 2021, they’re 5-8.

The point isn’t that Clemson has bad luck now. Its luck looks more or less as one would expect. It looks, well, average. But before this run, Clemson’s roster was so good, so filled with legendary talents like Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne Jr. and Tee Higgins, that luck had nothing to do with it. The Tigers won because they were flat-out better than everyone else. Now, they’re experiencing life as mere mortals.

While Florida State endured its long march through the college football wilderness, it found its way to the mountaintop through a steady acquisition of talent by any means necessary. Clemson has stayed the path, trusted the Swinney process and in doing so, the margin has gotten small enough that a few plays here and there make a massive difference.

Swinney was quick to defend his new offensive coordinator, Garrett Riley, after Saturday’s loss. He said Riley “referred to as a heck of a contest” and “has given us a probability to win each and every contest since he’s been right here.” Riley was Swinney’s first true outside hire in a decade when he was brought on board this offseason to reignite the offense, but even Swinney noted that it was Riley’s fault that Klubnik even had an option to switch out of a run play on third-and-1 in overtime and into a screen pass that resulted in lost yardage and, ultimately, a lost game.

Swinney said afterward that he had no issues with defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin either. He called several animated sideline conversations during the game “simply competing.” He didn’t acknowledge his halftime comments that suggested the defensive game plan had allowed FSU’s offense to look entirely too comfortable.

But fans have mostly pointed the finger at Swinney, once lauded for his consistency and culture, now an object of derision for his stubborn hold on The Clemson Way above all else.

It will be lost on no one at Clemson that Saturday’s game was decided on a dazzling touchdown grab by Keon Coleman in overtime.

Coleman is a transfer. So, too, is FSU’s quarterback, Jordan Travis. In fact, of Florida State’s 311 yards of total offense, 310 were accumulated by transfers.

Swinney, however, has insisted the portal has little to offer Clemson. He’s kicked the tires on a few guys, but he landed none beyond a couple of back-up quarterbacks. For a school that routinely lands blue-chip recruits out of high school, this 0% success rate in the portal feels dubious. But as several coaches who spoke with ESPN on the condition of anonymity argued, it doesn’t have to be a death knell.

“It doesn’t ruthless you’ll’t win,” one coach said. “It simply makes it more difficult. It way you’ll’t pass over to your recruits.”

Florida State had lost every matchup with Clemson since 2014, including last year’s 34-28 defeat in Tallahassee. And where coach Mike Norvell found holes, he filled them — with Coleman, tight end Jaheim Bell, corner Fentrell Cypress II and defensive tackle Branden Fiske, among others.

Clemson’s holes have been evident, too, but Swinney believes strongly that his own guys will develop to fill the gaps. Only, in too many areas, that hasn’t happened.

A place once renowned for its production of wide receivers continues to recruit the position at a high level, for example. The Tigers have signed nine blue-chip receivers in their past five classes, but none have become All-ACC players thus far. Three have transferred. Saturday’s game featured a breakout performance from three-star freshman Tyler Brown, who played extensively with Cole Turner, done for the year and Antonio Williams, out with an injury.

The same is true at QB. Deshaun Watson and Lawrence were generational talents who elevated Clemson to new heights. Klubnik and DJ Uiagalelei were blue-chip prospects, too — widely regarded as elite talents with immense upsides. Uiagalelei flamed out at Clemson and ultimately transferred to Oregon State. Klubnik’s potential was on display against FSU on Saturday, but his learning curve is clearly far steeper than that of Watson or Lawrence, who both blossomed as true freshmen.

That’s the point, one coach said.

“They nonetheless have excellent gamers,” the coach said. “However they’ve guys who’ll get drafted past due or walk to camps as a sovereign agent, while sooner than, that they had first-rounders.”

In other words, Clemson used to be able to overcome things like a bad check at the line of scrimmage or an ill-timed turnover or a weird bounce of the ball here and there. Heck, those things became so ancillary to the Tigers’ winning ways that they hardly warranted notice.

But now, the margin of error has shrunk — not to a degree that suggests Clemson cannot play with almost anyone, but enough that almost anyone can also play with Clemson.

“If you’ll’t see the guts of our crew,” Swinney said after Saturday’s loss, “nearest you’re simply fickle.”

He’s proper. Clemson performed with massive middle and grit and toughness in opposition to Florida Environment, and Swinney has all the time admired the ones qualities above all else.

The sickness is Clemson wasn’t extra gifted than Florida Environment on Saturday, and when two groups of more or less equivalent talent play games a contest like that — sure, a couple of performs right here or there create all of the excess.