Another week, another disaster for Clemson’s football team. This time against Syracuse. This loss — Clemson’s third in four games — ends the Tigers’ chances of playing for anything meaningful in the postseason. It’s September.

Coach Dabo Swinney and the Tigers can’t seem to figure anything out this season, with losses to LSU, Georgia Tech and now Syracuse after the Orange pulled off a 34-21 upset win at Death Valley on Saturday afternoon, despite entering the game as 17-point underdogs. But of all the issues with this Clemson team — and there are so very many to choose from — there’s one in particular that feels particularly hard to reconcile.

What the heck is wrong with Clemson’s defense?

“The first half, the D was probably as poor as I’ve seen,” Swinney said in his postgame news conference. “It was really poor. Very disappointing. We give up 24 points, get in a big hole.”

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney emotional during the postgame alma mater after his team fell to 1-3 and 0-2 in the ACC with today’s loss to Syracuse (via @Cambology) pic.twitter.com/9ykaBEsVxn

— Chapel Fowler (@chapelfowler) September 20, 2025

Spoiler alert: It didn’t get much better in the second half, with Clemson trailing by as many as 20 points midway through the fourth quarter.

Clemson ranked in the top three nationally in scoring defense in four of the final five seasons with Brent Venables in charge, but it hasn’t finished in the top 20 since he left to be the head coach at Oklahoma after the 2021 season. The Tigers regressed from 22nd in 2022 to 30th in 2023 to 49th in 2024. They ranked 53rd through three weeks this season — before getting torched by Syracuse on Saturday.

This wasn’t supposed to happen after Swinney fired Wes Goodwin in the offseason and hired Tom Allen away from Penn State. Despite Allen working with no shortage of talent, the Tigers seem to be going backward. Syracuse, which ran for just 103 yards against Tennessee and a paltry 45 against UConn in the first two weeks of the season, rushed for 155 yards on a Clemson defense that entered the season with arguably the best D-line in the country — thanks to the return of tackle Peter Woods and edge T.J. Parker. Both players are ranked among the top 10 draft-eligible prospects in the country by The Athletic’s Dane Brugler. The duo has a combined two sacks this season.

The Orange averaged 7.5 yards per carry in the first quarter and 6.5 yards through the first half before slowing down a bit in the final two quarters — when Clemson knew Syracuse was likely to run the ball to burn clock.

“That’s a good question,” Swinney said when asked about how Syracuse found so much success on the ground in the first half. “That’s what we were talking about at halftime today.”

The run game opened things up in the passing game. Before he went down with a non-contact injury, Syracuse quarterback Steve Angeli completed 18 of 31 attempts for 244 yards and two touchdowns.

The Tigers haven’t been able to get stops and can’t seem to tackle.

Combine that with the offensive issues — QB Cade Klubnik hasn’t played near his potential — and Clemson is now the biggest bust in college football this season. Prior to Saturday, the Tigers hadn’t lost a home game by more than 12 points to an unranked team since 2001 against North Carolina. They have not been 1-3 since 2004.

“Obviously an incredibly disappointing outcome and start to our season,” Swinney said. “There’s just no other way to say it. A lot of pain. I’ve been in a lot of painful locker rooms. That was up there near the top.”

Clemson, which is effectively out of the College Football Playoff race, has an idle week to see if it can find some answers. Swinney defended his program earlier in the week and was quick to remind Clemson fans of what the Tigers have accomplished with him in charge, including seven Playoff appearances and two national championships.

But what does it say about his program when his most talented units are some of Clemson’s biggest liabilities? That it’s September and Clemson has nothing left to play for? If the Tigers do indeed have first-round draft picks on this defense, they sure don’t look like it now. And it might be too late to pick up the pieces.

“We just didn’t get it done. It’s incredibly frustrating,” Swinney said. “We just can’t seem to get on the same page and play complementary football. We can’t seem to get it all together, and we kind of work against each other.

“We’re beat up emotionally and physically. But we’ll rally. And we’ll get back to work. There’s certainly no quit in me, and I didn’t see any quit in our team or our staff.”

(Photo of Dabo Swinney: Ken Ruinard / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)