Scheduling the UConn Huskies is a massive regret for Clemson football in 2021
The 2021 Clemson football schedule may be moving back to its normal 12-game look, but it is far from being normal.
The Clemson football team will be back in action the first weekend of September to take on the Georgia Bulldogs in Charlotte. The neutral-site season-opener will be played in Bank of America Stadium and the expectation is that both team will be ranked inside the top-five for the matchup.
While there is major excitement about that non-conference tilt, the rest of the schedule (in particular in the non-conference & the home slate) leaves much to be desired.
There’s not much you can do about the ACC slate and we’ve grown to understand that. You can’t help that Florida State is mediocre. You can’t help that Georgia Tech is your cross-divisional rival. But you can help who you schedule in the non-conference.
No one will (or should) question Clemson football when it comes to scheduling non-conference games but still, the UConn game must come with some regrets
Clemson has scheduled the likes of Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Texas A&M, LSU (future), Oklahoma (future) and plays South Carolina every single year in the non-conference.
No one is going to attack what the Tigers do in their non-conference. However, it just seems like the UConn game couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Since the Tigers scheduled the neutral-site game with Georgia this year, Clemson is already down to six home games instead of seven. The Tigers won’t have a major opponent come to Death Valley and the in-state rivalry game against South Carolina is being played in Williams-Brice.
What does that leave for the home schedule?
- S.C. State (Sept. 11)
- Georgia Tech (Sept. 18)
- Boston College (Oct. 2)
- Florida State (Oct. 30)
- UConn (Nov. 13)
- Wake Forest (Nov. 20)
There will still be some excitement for the Florida State game (especially after how the 2020 game was canceled), but we’re looking at a home slate in which the Tigers will be favored likely by at least three touchdown in every single game.
If you could switch UConn out with an opponent of some worth, it might spice up the schedule a little bit.
We understand that these things are set years in advance, but honestly Coastal Carolina, BYU, Navy, USF, Cincinnati or UCF would’ve drawn more intrigue than UConn- who is basically just a glorified FCS program. And all of those programs would’ve been willing to schedule a one-off road game with Clemson football.
You can’t change it now, but there’s nothing about that UConn game that we like. Huskies Coach
Randy Edsall was quick to throw the Power-5 conferences under the bus for playing in the fall last season and the truth is that it would be better if UConn didn’t even have a football program to begin with.
We digress.
Say what you want to about scheduling and we know that Clemson does the best it can, but the UConn game has to be a massive regret in terms of CFB Playoff resume-building and in terms of selling tickets to home games next year.