It’s not often college football serves up an opener dripping with playoff implications and Heisman hype. But August 30 is doing exactly that. LSU and Clemson. Brian Kelly vs Dabo Swinney. The two Tiger programs with parallel DNA will square off in a collision that will carry playoff atmosphere rather than Week 1. Both have veteran QBs, championship-winning HCs, and national title aspirations. And there’s one more thing binding them. Neither of them plans to step aside. But that’s where the Clemson twist comes in.
The season opener isn’t the only game Dabo Swinney is adamant to win. He’s trying to make history again. As Hayes Fawcett posted on Instagram on August 10, “Dabo Swinney thinks the Tigers will be the 1st 16-0 Team ever.” That’s not impossible because they already did it once. As he told ESPN’s Chris Low, “I’ve had one undefeated team. In 2018, we were the first 15-0 team in the history of major college football— ever. And I think we’re going to be the first 16-0 team. It’s a race to do that.” This is less of a goal and more of a public challenge to the rest of the sport, specifically those in their schedule.
In 2018, Clemson capped it off with a 44-16 dismantling of Nick Saban’s Alabama. That was the first perfect 15-win season in modern college football. And in 2025, Dabo Swinney has the roster to relive history. According to 247Sports Team Talent Composite, Clemson has a top-five roster nationally and returns 16 starters. DT Peter Woods is a wrecking machine and Edge rusher TJ Parker is already drawing Day 1 NFL draft buzz. QB Cade Klubnik is a Heisman frontrunner with a career-high 36 TDs last year.
Cade Klubnik still remembers Dabo Swinney pulling him into his office after his rocky sophomore year. He threw for less than 3,000 yards and had nine interceptions in 2023. “Most coaches would have been looking for another quarterback in the portal,” Klubnik said. “Not Coach Swinney. He brings you to Clemson for a reason.” That reason is now crystal clear. That’s to lead an offense returning nearly every weapon except Phil Mafah’s 1,115 rushing yards and eight touchdowns and TE Jake Briningstool. If Clemson wins this opener, the schedule sets up for a steamroll. Georgia Tech, SMU, Louisville, and the annual South Carolina rivalry all lie ahead. The ACC crown is theirs to lose, and the new straight-seeding playoff format could hand them a top-four spot if they deliver. And the HC’s already picturing it. And that could hurt LSU’s chances of wiping off a miserable streak.
Can Brian Kelly break LSU’s opener losing streak?
Brian Kelly knows the record. 0-3 in season openers at LSU, part of a brutal five-game Week 1 losing streak for the program. That’s why he’s doing something he’s never done before for this year’s opener. “We’ve circled the game,” he told Rece Davis and Pete Thamel in June. “I’ve never done that before in openers you know it’s all over our weight room it’s all over our workouts. We’re wearing shirts. We’re doing the kumbaya of we’re playing Clemson and we need to beat Clemson.” That’s a declaration of war on a trend that’s haunted him since 2022.
Brian Kelly’s resume in Baton Rouge isn’t empty. He had two straight 10-win seasons and 17 SEC victories, trailing only Georgia and Alabama. But a 9-4 campaign last year knocked them from the playoff radar and cranked up the heat under his chair. Analysts like Greg McElroy already call LSU-Clemson the “second-best non-conference game of the 2025 schedule,” and the HC is treating it like his own playoff.
This year, LSU brings 14 returning starters from their Texas Bowl win, headlined by All-SEC linebacker Whit Weeks and QB Garrett Nussmeier, whose arm has All-America chatter swirling. Add the No. 1 transfer class and another Top 10 recruiting haul, and they’re as loaded as they’ve ever been under Brian Kelly. Now all that’s left is to prove it on the road, in the other Death Valley to face the other Tiger team. And maybe, just maybe, stop Dabo Swinney’s history book from getting another chapter.
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