Clemson ran the worst fake punt of the entire 2025 college football season during its last game of the year. The Tigers were completely unprepared for their own trick play.
It was a disaster.
Nobody was on the same page. This kind of failure is why college football bowl games are so much fun.
The Pinstripe Bowl was covered in snow!
New York City received four inches of snow on Friday night into Saturday morning, which was the largest overnight accumulation since 2022. Temperatures hovered around 30º in the Bronx as Clemson and Penn State arrived to Yankee Stadium for the Pinstripe Bowl.
Fortunately, the field itself was covered with a tarp that made snow removal easy.
You cannot ask for a more picturesque scene at such a beautiful ballpark.
Perfect ball weather. pic.twitter.com/uGkvJlLfc0
— Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) December 27, 2025
A light flurry even started to fall right before kickoff.
Light flurry right now in Yankee Stadium pic.twitter.com/Hj6MD6U84p
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) December 27, 2025
Players from both teams warmed up without a shirt.
The Tigers even brought one of their most famous traditions with them to the Big Apple. Kind of.
Even the Grinch showed up on the Nittany Lions’ sideline!
You get the idea. It was cold and snowy. A feeling of Christmas was still in the air.
Everything about the Pinstripe Bowl was perfect— except for a fake punt during the first half.
Clemson’s fake punt was a complete and total disaster.
First and foremost, if you told either of these two teams before the season that they would be playing against each other in the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl at 6-6 and 7-5, they probably would’ve just quit right then and there. Both Clemson and Penn State were expected to compete for a national title.
That made the stakes of Saturday’s game even higher. It was about pride.
With that in mind, the Tigers decided to try and catch a spark on their first possession of the game. They ran a fake punt on 4th-and-3 from their own 32-yard-line that resulted in a turnover on downs.
The trickery was a fail.
Clemson’s punter tried to throw a pass to safety Ronan Hanafin. Hanafin was completely unprepared. He did not know the ball was coming to him. He even pushed a Penn State player out of the way — after the ball had already hit the ground — and dove on the loose ball as if it was a punt and not a pass.
Clemson with a fake punt on the opening drive of the #PinstripeBowl…. the only problem is #5 wasn't expecting it, he went diving for the ball on the ground thinking it was a punt 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/eLHRrrOPGA
— 🜲 🜲 🜲 (@fsh733) December 27, 2025
I don’t know whether Hanafin knew this was going to be a fake. At no point did he look back for the ball. The entire play was designed as a pass that fell entirely incomplete.
Maybe the punter went rogue. Maybe the play call got lost in the shuffle. I don’t know. It was hilarious.