What’s next for Clemson football after a thrilling Gator Bowl win over Kentucky?

Standing on the sidelines at EverBank Stadium on Friday before a furious comeback win, Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik had a message for his teammates.

“Why quit now?”

These Tigers, after all, had already faced a lot of football adversity this season. Baffling turnovers. The team’s worst start to ACC play in 25 years. The end of one of college football’s greatest streaks. Big-picture questions about the status of Dabo Swinney’s dynasty.

“We’d been through so much,” Klubnik said.

So, in the grand scheme of things, a two-score deficit against Kentucky in the Gator Bowl wasn’t anything new for this Clemson team. Just another opportunity, Klubnik said, to glean some momentum and good vibes out of a less than ideal situation.

Message received.

For Clemson, Friday’s 38-35 win over Kentucky in Jacksonville — a thrilling comeback in which the team scored 28 points and forced four turnovers in the fourth quarter — was not only a celebration of this team’s journey but a sign of what they can become.

Watching Klubnik lead a game-winning drive after an up-and-down sophomore season and Garrett Riley’s offense finally click late and a true freshman defensive back ice the game with an interception, it wasn’t hard to see the building blocks of the 2024 season in motion.

“Growth follows belief, right?” Swinney said. “If you don’t have the right beliefs, if you’ve got doubt, that’s where your growth is gonna go toward — that direction. These guys chose to believe in themselves. To believe in each other.”

A final record of 9-4 wasn’t the season Clemson was expecting. The program embraced national championship expectations this offseason after missing consecutive College Football Playoffs and sputtering in the Orange Bowl to end the 2022 season.

It was clear on Labor Day in Durham those expectations needed adjusting — even clearer after Clemson got out to a 4-4 start with losses to Duke, Florida State, Miami and N.C. State colored by a stunning run of catastrophic turnovers, poor execution and other self-inflicted damage.

The turnaround that followed, though, changed the narrative of this season. Clemson won and won in different ways: grinding it out against No. 12 Notre Dame, routing Georgia Tech, getting some lucky bounces against No. 22 North Carolina, bullying rival South Carolina at their place.

All that progress felt far away when Clemson trailed Kentucky 21-10 seconds into the third quarter here after surrendering a 102-yard kickoff return touchdown. Klubnik was inefficient. The offense had no pop. The defense, relied upon over and over, was breaking down.

But “there was no way that we were going to leave this game with any regrets,” Klubnik said. “Sure as heck I wasn’t. Or anybody else on this team.”

A huge comeback

So, after a scoreless third quarter, they did just that during an unforgettable fourth quarter that featured five lead changes in the final 6:45 of game time and 42 combined points.

An offensive line that struggled all afternoon and allowed eight sacks opened up lanes for running back Phil Mafah to score three fourth-quarter touchdowns.

Klubnik shook off a leg injury that had him limping and delivered his best drive of the season after an interception: 8-for-8 for 71 yards on Clemson’s game-winning drive, including completions of 16, 11 and 15 yards to set up Mafah’s game-winning score — and a two-point pass directly following that touchdown to boot, which put Kentucky in a spot where a field goal could only force overtime.

Clemson’s defense — down four big-time starters due to transfers and opt-outs — gave up 172 yards and 10.1 yards per play in the final period but also forced four turnovers, including the game-ending play, an interception of Kentucky quarterback Devin Leary by cornerback Shelton Lewis.

One quarterback kneel later, a team that started 4-4 had won its fifth straight game and gotten to at least nine wins for the 13th season in a row (the only other active team to do that is Alabama) and delivered Swinney his ACC-record 12th bowl victory.

“It was a four quarter game, to say the least,” linebacker Barrett Carter said. “Guys fought for the whole game. … Super proud of how each (unit) was able to feed off each other.”

“One of those where nobody deserves to lose,” Swinney added.

Assessing Clemson in 2024

Now focus shifts to 2024 — and, as a reminder, next year’s Clemson roster gets an immediate chance to show how much it has grown (or not) because the Tigers are playing regional rival and CFP stalwart Georgia in their season opener in Atlanta.

Swinney acknowledged postgame the offensive line — which played its first game under former UGA assistant and newly hired assistant Matt Luke on Friday — needs to get better.

Clemson allowed a season-high eight sacks to Kentucky, and that position group’s struggles and lack of development led to the firing of position coach Thomas Austin after the regular season. No team wins a national championship without excellence up front.

The Tigers are also committed to who they have at defensive end despite two veterans, Xavier Thomas and Justin Mascoll, moving on and the depth behind freshman All American T.J. Parker unclear.

There will also be lingering questions about explosiveness on offense. Klubnik showed a lot of moxie throughout 2023 but finished No. 68 nationally in quarterback rating; junior running backs Will Shipley and Phil Mafah are both mulling NFL decisions; and Clemson’s wide receivers still disappear from the game at times.

Clemson is counting on incoming receiver recruits Bryant Wesco and TJ Moore to help address that issue. And don’t forget about Sammy Brown, a five-star recruit and the top linebacker signee in modern program history, pairing up with Carter, who’s back for his senior year.

It’s safe to assume the Tigers won’t touch anyone’s way- too-early top 10 rankings for the 2024 seasons. Or be picked first, or perhaps even second, in next summer’s ACC preseason media poll. This team isn’t there just yet.

What Swinney does see, though, is belief. The kind that carried Clemson from 4-4 to 9-4 and from adversity to joy on the field at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, where fans rushed the field and players hugged and Swinney got a Gatorade cooler bath during his postgame TV interview.

Given where Clemson was in October, after losing at N.C. State, and where they are now with problems to be solved but plenty of momentum, that’s worth something.

“What a way to end it,” Klubnik said. “Just so awesome.”