On Saturday, Clemson football's season came to an end with a tough road loss at the hands of the Texas Longhorns in the first round of the college football playoffs. Clemson hung tough for the majority of this game, playing Texas closer than any of the other road teams in the first round played theirs, but it ultimately wasn't enough to prevent a 38-24 loss to send the Tigers into the offseason.

Clemson's defense was shaky throughout the duration of this season, and after the game, some were wondering whether or not head coach Dabo Swinney may be considering making changes to some of his personnel in search of better results, including potentially defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin.

However, Swinney downplayed, if not necessarily denied, those swirling rumors after the game, per Alex Turri of USA Today's Clemson Wire.

“Aw man, we’re not worried about any of that stuff,” Swinney said. “We had a great year, we won the championship. We’ve got to improve in all areas. We’ve got an excellent staff. All those guys work really hard and well together.”

The championship Swinney referred to would be the ACC Championship, which Clemson did indeed win in thrilling fashion vs SMU which gave them the chance to compete in the playoffs to begin with.

Where does Clemson go from here?

Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney yells to the referees during the second half of the game against the Texas Longhorns of the CFP National Playoff first round game at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
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It's hard to make a blanket statement about the 2024 Clemson football season that accurately some up everything the team was, and wasn't. There were times that were very ugly, including in the team's season opening loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, as well as their collapse down the stretch of the game vs SMU.

However, Clemson also fought valiantly in their game against Texas despite being outmatched from a talented perspective, and also showed impressive poise in getting out to a 7-0 lead on the road.

It wasn't that long ago that Clemson football was at the top of the college football world, having won their second championship in three seasons with a 2019 victory over Alabama.

However, things have gone steadily downhill from there, first with a couple of playoff losses over the ensuing seasons before the team stopped making the big dance entirely.

This year, the new 12-team format, along with the fact that the winner of each conference is an automatic qualifier, allowed Clemson to make their way back into the tournament.

Clemson will open up its 2025 season against LSU at home.