The latest on the Clemson football season opener
The Clemson football team is scheduled to open its 2020 season next Saturday, Sept. 12 against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
The Tigers enter the game as 32-point favorites against the Demon Deacons, who lost their top offensive play-maker in Sage Surratt due to opt out.
There have been many questions about this game from Clemson football fans, but none have been more prevalent than these two:
- What time will the game be played?
- Will fans be allowed in attendance?
We have an answer for one of the questions and the latest being reported says we’ll have an answer on the other question relatively soon.
Stadium’s Brett McMurphy reported Tuesday morning that Wake Forest will not be able to have fans at its home opener against Clemson. This report comes after NC State and North Carolina announcing that they will not have fans at home games during the month of September. Wake Forest’s only home game in the month of the September is the home-opener against Clemson.
Wake Forest will not be able to have fans vs. Clemson on Sept. 12, its only home game in September. NC State also will not have fans for all home football games in September
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) September 1, 2020
But what about the kickoff time? That’s the golden question from Clemson football fans
247 Sports’ Brandon Marcello reported that Tiger fans should expect some kind of announcement this week.
The television networks have likely made a rough draft of what the kickoff times will look like, but are waiting to make sure that football is, indeed, a full-go for that Saturday before making formal announcements. Clemson just returned to practice after a weekend and the Tigers have undergone their first round of testing- they’ll be performing three tests weekly. The television networks likely will wait to see about potential positive cases and outbreaks before announcing their plans when it comes to game times.
Looking at the Sept. 12 slate of games, though, we can begin to speculate on what the weekend will look like. Here are the most notable match-ups:
- Clemson at Wake Forest
- Coastal Carolina at Kansas
- Georgia Tech at Florida State
- Syracuse at North Carolina
- Duke at Notre Dame
- Louisiana Monroe at Army
- Louisiana at Iowa State
- UTEP at Texas
- Missouri State at Oklahoma
- SMU at TCU
- Tulsa at Oklahoma State
Which of these match-ups scream ESPN College GameDay attraction to you? The answer is probably very few.
If there’s not any intriguing match-ups (and one could make an argument that the vast majority of these games would be played at noon on a normal College Football weekend) then we can likely glean that ESPN will look to put Clemson football in prime-time.
If I were guessing, I would say the Tigers play in that 7:30 p.m. slot. At the earliest, they fill one of the 3:30 p.m. games, but I would imagine that ESPN will want to feature the No. 1 team in the country- even if it’s going to be a blowout. We’ll find out soon enough, though.
UPDATE (12 p.m.): Clemson and Wake Forest has officially been announced for 7:30 p.m. on ABC. The Tigers will host The Citadel the following week at 4 p.m. and that game will be broadcast on the ACC Network.