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The No. 12 Clemson Tigers will host No. 16 South Carolina in a season-ending rivalry game with potential College Football Playoff implications. Each team has received outside consideration for a bid to the 12-team field, though both understand that a lot must go their way to firmly entrench themselves in the conversation. Step one is picking up a win on Saturday.
The game will be one of just two meetings between ranked foes on rivalry weekend. Dabo Swinney thought that might generate some momentum to have College GameDay set up shop on the Clemson campus. It won’t happen, and the head coach believes he knows why!
Before the year began, the ACC along with ESPN asked the Tigers to move the regular season finale against the Gamecocks to Black Friday. Clemson rejected! At the time, they were still looking for a way out of the conference largely due to television revenue. They weren’t keen on taking orders from the league or its network.
Clemson University refused a request by the Atlantic Coast Conference and ESPN to move this year’s home game against South Carolina to the Friday night after Thanksgiving on Black Friday.
Court documents obtained by TigerNet pertaining to the school’s lawsuit against the conference in its efforts to break the Grant of Rights revealed that the conference and ESPN made the request…
-David Hood / TigerNet
Whether that had any impact on the kickoff time this weekend is unknown. Many blamed the ACC after seeing the game scheduled for noon instead of primetime.
Dabo Swinney leaned into that conspiracy this week! He joked that the Tigers were spurned by College GameDay due to his decision not to comply with ESPN’s demand.
Dabo Swinney says he’s surprised ESPN’s GameDay didn’t come to the Clemson-South Carolina game.
But also, he’s not.
“I think they’re mad at me because I didn’t move the game to Friday.”
— Jon Blau (@Jon_Blau) November 26, 2024
He said the quiet part out loud! Clemson will still host South Carolina this weekend in its biggest game of the year. College GameDay won’t put it under the national spotlight. ESPN isn’t airing it in primetime. That won’t lessen the significance of the rivalry matchup this Saturday.