Is Clemson a college football blue-blood? | answered by @mattzemek

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ACC QUESTION of the WEEK : Is Clemson a college football blue-blood?

We return to the question of blue-blood status in college sports.

When does a program gain such status? When does a program lose it?

How can programs change the answer, for better or worse?

What I have found is that every person will have a different set of standards. Ask 10 people in a room, you will get 10 different answers — some points of agreement and overlap, yes, but the precise details will vary if you drill deep enough.

Let’s start here with Clemson: Was the program a blue-blood in 2012? Very few people would have said yes. A large number of people wouldn’t even have viewed the question as a serious inquiry worthy of debate.

Now, it’s different, but instead of laying out all the reasons why I think Clemson is a blue-blood in 2019, I will simply ask you to formulate your own standards here:

Is a blue-blood created in a five-year period, or do you think blue-bloods can only be the product of long-term progressions? Phrased differently, is a blue-blood a 25-year creation, or can it emerge in a short period of time?

I think we can all appreciate that Clemson has won more than just one national title under Dabo Swinney. The program has replicated success at the highest level. It is annually expected to make the national title game and play Alabama. No one disputes the program’s current strength or credentials. The debate here almost surely revolves around the length of Clemson’s dominance. Some might expect 10 or 20 or 25 years as the length of time in which a program has to be enormously successful before it gains blue-blood status.

I don’t think that has to be the case, the obvious limitation being that one individual title or one isolated run doesn’t instantly confer blue-blood status. I look for consistency at the highest level, to the point that it becomes an expectation. That will inevitably require at least four or five years of sustained quality, so to that extent, one could say I DO have a certain time requirement, but I wouldn’t come out and say, “You have to be extremely good for at least four years.” I merely think that as soon as a program:

A) wins more than one national title in a concentrated period of time; and

B) uses those multiple national titles to create legitimately high annual expectations

… it has basically achieved blue-blood status. We don’t need a 10-year minimum requirement to get there.

I do realize, though, that everyone’s standards will vary. The main point is not to assert that Clemson is a blue-blood. The main point is to make sure we think through exactly when, why and how we confer — or revoke — blue-blood status in major college sports.

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