Three teams that are capable of beating Clemson football in 2020

There is a lot of excitement and hope around Clemson football for 2020 and there should be. The Tigers have arguably the best backfield coming back in the country and a defense that will have a great mixture of experience and youth when they take the field in September.

As Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney preaches all the time, any team can be beaten on any night if they are not locked in, focused and ready to play. We saw that in 2019 when a below-average UNC team nearly knocked off Clemson in Chapel Hill.

Once again, the schedule sets up favorable for Clemson in 2020. While the ACC will be much improved, the Tigers will still be favored in every game of the year. They have to go to Notre Dame for the first time in school history, but that game is not until early November, right about the time the Tigers have turned to their “Championship phase” of the season.

However good Clemson football will be in 2020, there are still a couple of teams on their schedule that they cannot afford to overlook, even if the ACC is still not garnering the respect that they should. If you don’t know the 2020 Clemson, here it is:

On the onset, nothing but Notre Dame stands out as a challenge and many fans are even laughing at that statement because of what took place in Dallas a couple of years ago. Make no mistake about it, Clemson will get everyone’s best shot every week and if they fall asleep at the wheel, well you know what can happen.

Here are three teams that the Tigers cannot underestimate.

October 2nd – Boston College

Boston College hired Jeff Hafley away from Ohio State after the conclusion of 2019. Hafley is one of the better defensive minds in college football and will have Boston College playing a different brand of football in 2020.

What we have learned over the years in college football, is year one of a regime change teams to outplay their talent level. They are reinvigorated by the new message and want to prove to the new staff that they belong.

Hafley will do a much better job than Steve Addazio at playing to his teams’ strengths and Boston College will upset a few teams in 2020 as they make the transition.

October 17th – NC State

While this is a home game, NC State will be a much better team than they were in 2019. No one in the country was more affected by the injury bug than NC State; they lost 12 starters to injury in 2019.

While it is hard to talk to Clemson football fans about NC State because they all dislike Dave Doeren with a passion, his Wolfpack will be a year older and have a lot of depth due to the injuries in 2019. If NC State can find a quarterback and develop him over the offseason, they will surprise a lot of people in 2020.

November 7th – Notre Dame

This game will end up being just the second Top 5 matchup at Notre Dame in the last 50 years. The only other time that Notre Dame has hosted a Top 5 matchup was back in 1993 when FSU visited. There will be fans that overlook Notre Dame because of the college football playoff game, however, that game and those teams have nothing to do with 2020.

NBC has already announced this game to be a 7:30 pm kick-off and there is no doubt that South Bend will be rocking. As UGA showed a couple of years ago, Notre Dame fans will gladly sell their tickets for the right price and allow the visiting team to take over their stadium so I imagine that Notre Dame Stadium will be pretty orange in early November.

This is not predicting that Clemson football will lose these three games, a matter of fact we have stated the opposite, but these are three teams that should be on the radar heading into 2020.