The 2023 college football season doesn’t kick off until August, but this week, a national outlet gave its early ranking of the top 25 teams in the country ahead of the upcoming campaign.
Athlon Sports released its post-spring Top 25 for next season and has Clemson outside the top 10 but still in the top 15, ranking the Tigers at No. 12.
Here’s what Athlon’s Steven Lassan wrote about Dabo Swinney’s team, which enters 2023 with a new offensive coordinator in Garrett Riley coming off a 2022 season that saw the Tigers go 11-3 (8-0 ACC):
Dabo Swinney didn’t sit idle this offseason despite the program winning double-digit games for the 12th year in a row in ’22. Instead, Swinney made a bold move to hire TCU’s Garrett Riley as the program’s new coordinator to revitalize an offense that has grown stale in recent years. Riley’s hire is also good news for the development of rising star sophomore quarterback Cade Klubnik and dynamic running back Will Shipley. As usual, defense won’t be a problem at Clemson. The Tigers are loaded along the line and at linebacker. If Klubnik develops and answers emerge along the offensive line and receiving corps, Swinney’s team will be knocking on the door of the playoff once again.
In 2022, Clemson missed the College Football Playoff for the second straight season following six consecutive CFP appearances from 2015-20, though the Tigers did win their seventh ACC Championship in the last eight seasons and earned a berth in the Orange Bowl.
Clemson will open the 2023 season against Duke on Labor Day (Monday, Sept. 4) at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, N.C.
Georgia unsurprisingly sits atop Athlon’s post-spring Top 25 coming off back-to-back national titles, with Michigan, Alabama, Southern Cal and Ohio State rounding out the top five in that order.
Florida State (No. 7) is the highest-ranked ACC team in Athlon’s post-spring Top 25, and North Carolina (No. 25) is the only other ACC team in the top 25 besides Clemson.
Xavier Thomas is back to win another championship. Dear Old Clemson has added signed posters from Thomas to our online store. For this weekend only they are on sale at an introductory price of only $30.
Now there is a new way you can support Clemson student-athletes. Purchase collectibles from Dear Old Clemson and the proceeds with go to support Clemson student-athletes. 
Dear Old Clemson is doing NIL the ‘Clemson way’, but we need your help to make sure we build a sustainable, repeatable model that will help keep Clemson competitive with the other top programs around the nation.
Dabo Swinney: “We need your assistance more than ever to provide meaningful NIL opportunities. Tiger Impact, Dear Old Clemson and other collectives allow student-athletes to utilize their voice and platform to maximize their NIL opportunities and strengthen their impact in the community.”
Graham Neff:
“Tiger Impact, Dear Old Clemson and other collectives need your support to help provide meaningful NIL opportunities for our student athletes. We are doing things the right way, the Clemson way with integrity as a non-negotiable and we fully support the mission of these groups.”
Join the Tiger Club or Lady Tiger Club to help these great student-athletes and help the Tigers compete at the highest level!
