The 2020 Clemson football season will have an asterisk regardless of what championships it wins.
Bear with me here while I explain this. By now, you should know that I expect Clemson football to run away with the ACC, make the College Football Playoff, and run away with a title as they did in 2018. The asterisk in 2020 will not come from winning their fourth national title but will be something much simpler and quite honestly, very petty.
The 2020 Clemson football season will see the Tigers have their two longest rivalries taken from them by outside forces. Of course, I am talking about the Palmetto Bowl with South Carolina and the Textile Bowl with NC State.
As the Big Ten announced their return to football, you also have the return of one of the biggest rivalry in sports – Ohio State and Michigan and I got all upset again that Clemson football will have its streak of 111 straight years ending because the SEC wants to control everything.
Clemson football is getting shortchanged on its rivalry games.
Looking around college football and in addition to seeing Michigan and Ohio State seeing teams like Oklahoma, Texas, Auburn, LSU, and Georgia all play their biggest rival and we aren’t going to be able to play ours just infuriating. (Also, having lived in Atlanta for 25 years, I assure Georgia Tech is not UGA’s biggest rival)
After giving John Swofford a lot of credit last week, I am back on the anti-Swofford train again because he allowed his schedule-makers to take NC State away from Clemson in 2020.
As stated above, this is really petty and meaningless in the grand scheme of the 2020 college football season. Clemson would have dominated both of those teams on the field and will in recruiting but it’s one thing to know it would happen and it’s another to watch it happen.
Nothing else in sports brings me as much as seeing both of those fan bases and coaches whining and crying after another butt whooping at the hands of Clemson football.
Yes, Clemson football will be just fine in 2020. Yes, Clemson football will go undefeated in 2020 and yes, Clemson football will win a national title in 2020 but those things would have been even sweeter had Clemson been able to keep its two biggest rivals on their schedule.