Clutch protection systems and methods include calculating a slip of a clutch of a manual transmission based on an input rotational velocity of a flywheel coupled to a torque generating system. The calculated slip is used to calculate an energy into the clutch. In one implementation, an accumulated energy into the clutch is calculated based on a rate of the calculated energy and a torque request for the torque generating system is limited based on the accumulated energy. In one implementation, an energy capacity remaining in the clutch until a threshold indicative of damage occurring is calculated based on the calculated energy and a limited torque request for the torque generating system is generated. The limited torque request corresponds to an amount of allowable torque before full clutch engagement occurs, where this time is calculable based on a rate at which the clutch slip is decreasing.