Clemson Football: Ranking the 5 best Palmetto Bowl games of the Swinney era

The latest game of the series has to be mentioned because of what happened in 2018.

All year long Clemson fans had to listen about how South Carolina was closing the gap and how Clemson was losing a step athletically. Why all that chatter? Well, Clemson would win the 2018 national championship and Carolina put up the most yards and points that Clemson had surrendered in a couple of seasons.

That belief really fueled the Gamecocks fan base into believing that they were close to exploding on the scene and with a senior quarterback coming back in Jake Bentley that they could finally end the Tigers dominance.

Except they didn’t and didn’t come close either.

Bentley would not play in the game as he suffered a season-ending injury. Instead, they turned their offense over to a freshman quarterback from California and his fate would be no different.

Clemson football had a point to prove – this was their state and regardless of how much talking Will Muschamp and the Gamecocks did, they could not back it up on the field.

Clemson was up 24-3 at the halftime and held Carolina scoreless for the last two quarters. Tiger quarterback Trevor Lawrence would end the game 26/36 295 yards and three passing touchdowns. He would also average more than eight yards per carry that night as well.

Clemson had won their sixth in a row versus Carolina since they won seven in a row between 1934-1940.