Clemson Football: Could Williams-Brice be a home outing for the Tigers?

The Clemson football team will travel to Williams-Brice Stadium next weekend, but could the atmosphere be friendlier than normal?

Several Clemson football fans have asked us this question: Could Williams-Brice be closer to a home game for the Tigers than what we might expect?

Though at first look this would seem like a crazy concept, it certainly stands to reason that the Tigers could have a friendlier environment than they are used to when visiting Columbia.

Why? The tremendous amount of Gamecock fans looking to sell their tickets.

Currently, one can get tickets to the Palmetto Bowl for as low as $61 on Stubhub, a third-party ticket seller. You can get tickets in the lower bowl for about $100. That’s extremely low for this annual rivalry.

Just for reference, the ‘get-in’ price for the Clemson-South Carolina game at this point last season was more than $105 for a ticket in the upper-deck in Death Valley. The price was fairly similar in Williams-Brice two years ago with the lowest price coming in at $96.

With ticket prices expected to drop as we get closer to game time, this is setting up to be one of the lowest-attending crowds in quite a while for the annual rivalry game. The noon kickoff obviously didn’t help matters, but there were plenty of Gamecock fans looking to sell their tickets before the time of the game was even announced.

While Clemson football fans are still expected to show up in their normal numbers, it seems that many Gamecock fans have already made the decision to sit this one out. Several South Carolina fans on social media have encouraged Gamecock fans who are selling their tickets to only sell them to fellow Gamecock fans instead of Clemson football fans.

Some of those not attending say they are attempting to make a statement to USC President Bob Caslen and AD Ray Tanner. Others say they just don’t see the point in seeing the Gamecocks get blown out and lose for a sixth-straight time to the Tigers. Just a couple of weeks ago, Gamecock fans left Williams-Brice Stadium in droves as South Carolina was getting beat at home against Appalachian State.

Though I expect the crowd to be a little emptier than normal, I still fully expect this to be a road atmosphere for Clemson football. Though there will likely be more orange in the stands than normal, I still expect the Gamecock student section to be full and plenty of the South Carolina faithful to be present.

I don’t expect this to be a token ‘home game’ for Clemson. Gamecock fans are going to show up and it will be loud at the start of the matchup.

But I will say this: If the Tigers get any kind of lead early, we could very well see the South Carolina faithful make an early exit to do some extended Black Friday shopping instead of sticking around to see the rest of the matchup. So, by the fourth quarter, the majority of the crowd could be wearing orange if things play out as they very well could next Saturday.