Rumors: Clemson football will have to travel to South Carolina during 2021 season
There have been discussions- especially among Clemson football fans- that the Tigers and in-state rival South Carolina could potentially swap hosting years to make up for a canceled Palmetto Bowl in Death Valley during the 2020 season.
For those that don’t remember, Clemson and South Carolina were originally scheduled to play on the weekend of Thanksgiving but that was canceled when the SEC decided that it would not play in-state rivalry games during the 2020 season.
The Tigers were slated to host the Gamecocks and- because of the cancellation made by the SEC– were left out in the cold and forced to find another non-conference opponent to fill that slot. It ended up being The Citadel, who Clemson was originally slated to play as well.
Despite the discussions that Clemson football might get to host this year’s game, it doesn’t seem that will be the case
The Clemson Insider’s Robert Thorne MacRae reported earlier this week that this doesn’t seem to be in the cards any longer.
In the report, MacRae said the game will be played in Columbia in 2021 because South Carolina can’t afford the loss of revenue that would happen if the game was moved to Death Valley.
Since the SEC canceled the game, it only would’ve been fair for the Tigers to host back-to-back games in 2021 and 2022 to make up for the loss of that home game. Of course, it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal since Clemson made the trip to Columbia for the first 57 meetings as part of ‘Big Thursday.‘
Clemson could play hardball and threaten to cancel its game with South Carolina for the 2021 season, but that’s not going to happen.
In the end, though, we shouldn’t expect the decision made to be fair and nothing is going to come of this.
The Tigers are going to travel down to Columbia for the final game of the 2021 regular season and they’ll pick up their seventh-straight win over the Gamecocks as a result and that’s really all that can be said.