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Clemson football has a chance at its first headstone in 2020

By Jeff Benedict

Paul Keisler takes a photograph of himself with two new top-10 graveyard stones outside the practice facility at Clemson University Tuesday. Keisler said he looks forward to the new season, and waits for decision that may be implemented this new season in regard to Coronavirus. Clemson has 34 markers in the graveyard, one for each win over top-10 teams, including the ACC championship win over Virginia and number two Ohio State at Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl last December 28, 2019.Clemson Football Fans Wait For Football
Paul Keisler takes a photograph of himself with two new top-10 graveyard stones outside the practice facility at Clemson University Tuesday. Keisler said he looks forward to the new season, and waits for decision that may be implemented this new season in regard to Coronavirus. Clemson has 34 markers in the graveyard, one for each win over top-10 teams, including the ACC championship win over Virginia and number two Ohio State at Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl last December 28, 2019.Clemson Football Fans Wait For Football /
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Clemson football has a chance to add to the graveyard Saturday in South Bend.

The Clemson football graveyard is one of the coolest traditions in college football. If you are unfamiliar with what the graveyard is, allow us a minute to explain.

The origination of the Clemson football graveyard was to commemorate a Tigers road win over a team ranked in the AP Top 20. Over the years, it has expanded to include any team Tigers win away from Death Valley over a team ranked in the AP, Coaches, or College Football Playoff rankings.

There are currently 43 headstones in the Clemson football graveyard. Of those 43, just seven of them are over teams ranked in the Top 5 at the time of kickoff. Here are those seven wins-

  1. December 3, 2011 – #5 Virginia Tech: 38-10F
  2. December 31, 2015 – #4 Oklahoma: 37-17F
  3. December 31, 2016 – #2 Ohio State: 31-0F
  4. January 1, 2017 – #1 Alabama: 35-31F
  5. December 29, 2018 – #3 Notre Dame: 30-3F
  6. January 7, 2019 – #1 Alabama: 44-16F
  7. December 28, 2019 – #2 Ohio State: 29-23F

As you can see, every Top 5 win over a ranked opponent on the road has happened under the guidance of head coach Dabo Swinney and six of the seven have come in either the national semi-final or national championship game.

It isn’t often that Clemson football faces a Top five opponent in the regular season.

The last time the Tigers faces a Top 5 opponent in the regular season was back in 2016 when they beat #3 ranked Louisville lead by Lamar Jackson 42-36 – though that game was at home.

The last time Clemson football faced a Top 5 opponent on the road during the regular seasons was back in 2014 when they went on the road and faced the defending national champions and #1 ranked Florida State Seminoles in Tallahassee.

Of course, Clemson would lose that game 23-17 but that was the night the Tigers coaching staff realized that they could no longer bring freshman Deshaun Watson along but had to throw him into the fire if they were going to have a chance to win football games.

Saturday night in South Bend will be electric even without any Clemson football fans in attendance. Clemson has only faced Notre Dame one time in South Bend and that was back in 1979 and it was a 16-10 Tigers win.

Next. 5 Tigers who will determine outcome of Notre Dame game. dark

Regardless of what happens Saturday night, Clemson still has all of their goals in front of them, but beating Notre Dame without Trevor Lawrence, James Skalski, and Tyler Davis would make 2020 that much sweeter.

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