Clemson Football’s Fall Mirrors Mike Tyson’s Collapse After Loss to Syracuse

On a June night in 2005, Mike Tyson was no longer The Baddest Man on the Planet, That Young Knockout Kid, or Iron. He was just exhausted, refusing to answer the bell for the seventh round of his fight with unknown heavyweight Kevin McBride.

Watching Clemson football lose by two touchdowns at home in Death Valley to Syracuse on Saturday struck a familiar chord to that June night 20 years ago.

Clemson under coach Dabo Swinney was once the baddest program on the planet. The Tigers could deliver haymakers and put college football’s greatest on the mat, then cut postgame promos that spun yarns from former Death Row Records head Suge Knight.

These days, the banter after Clemson games is considerably more somber.

“A lot of pain,” Swinney said Saturday in the minutes following a 34-21 loss to Syracuse. “I’ve been in a lot of painful locker rooms. This was up there near the top.”

Swinney’s address wasn’t Tyson’s post-fight monologue of 2005, when the former heavyweight champion said he didn’t “want to disrespect the sport.” However, the Clemson coach sounded like someone drained by the game he loves when he referred to this season as disappointing.

Make no mistake, the 2025 season is already wildly disappointing for Clemson. The program’s run of six straight College Football Playoff appearances, during which it won two national championships, ended in 2021.

The three seasons Clemson failed to qualify for the Playoff still produced a combined 30 wins, the kind of results most teams around the country would give anything for. But after playing at the sport’s pinnacle for the better part of a decade, sliding from national title contention marked a decided step down.

Given Swinney was among the most vocal critics of player payment — so much so, political commentator John Oliver once used him as the setup for a punchline on HBO’s Last Week Tonight — Clemson’s downturn coinciding with the Supreme Court allowing athletes to capitalize on name, image and likeness has been a consistent talking point.

In fact, just hours before Syracuse finalized its win to drop Clemson to 1-3 on the season, Swinney’s former championship rival Nick Saban broached the subject on ESPN College Gameday.

“The game has changed,” Saban said. “[Coaches] need to change with it, otherwise you're not going to put yourself in the same position other people are and having the chance to be successful.”

And yet, Clemson returned to the Playoff in the 2024 season. The comeback, it seemed, was on. Cade Klubnik returning at quarterback headlined a 2025 roster made up partially from recruiting classes that were still ranked among the nation’s best: No. 11 in 2022 and 2023, per 247Sports, and No. 15 in 2024.

The comeback of 2024 is now looking more like a dead-cat bounce — a mirage, not unlike Tyson’s comeback attempts after losing the undisputed heavyweight championship to Evander Holyfield in 1996.

To Saban’s point about Clemson needing to adapt, it’s noteworthy that all three teams to have beaten the Tigers thus far in 2025 brought in transfer classes this past offseason ranked higher than Clemson (No. 83): LSU at No. 1, Georgia Tech at No. 32, and Syracuse at No. 47.

Erstwhile Heisman Trophy contender Klubnik falling short of expectations sits front-and-center as to why the Tigers have struggled. Clemson’s offense has stalled too often — either at the end of games as in the Week 1 loss to LSU, or early as against Georgia Tech and Syracuse.

But Klubnik also led Clemson on touchdown drives of 75, 76, and 75 yards to spearhead a rally vs. Georgia Tech. Tigers defenses of the championship era would not so easily have given up a 90-yard scoring drive like the one Tech used to regain the lead in the fourth quarter last week.

Likewise, surrendering scores on each of Syracuse’s first four possessions on Saturday — three of which went for touchdowns — marked a dramatic departure for a defense that once hit as hard as any in college football.

No one issue is solely to blame for the Tigers’ tumultuous start, which makes it all the more gut-wrenching. There’s no easy fix for Clemson football at this juncture, as it finds itself in its corner and unable to answer the bell.