Clemson football is predicted to face Ohio State once again at the end of the 2021 college football season.
Of course, if this were to happen, this would be the third straight year Clemson football and Ohio State will have met in the postseason, and as in the previous two, it is expected to be in the College Football Playoff semi-finals.
247Sports published their first 2021 Bowl projections and they have the Tigers heading back down to Miami Gardens to face the Buckeyes in the Orange Bowl. The last time these two teams met in the Orange Bowl, Clemson walked away with a 40-35 win over Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes.
That win helped catapult them into the national spotlight as the Tigers would go from a team of pretenders to a perennial power program. Despite the success against teams like Auburn, LSU, and Oklahoma, this win caught the attention of everyone.
Clemson football isn’t going anywhere
Should this prediction come to fruition, Clemson football would presumably have won beaten UGA, won their seventh straight outright ACC title and would make the College Football Playoff for the seventh consecutive year.
Not bad for a year when everyone is counting on the Tigers to fall from grace after the departure of first overall pick Trevor Lawrence as well as the all-time greatest running back in ACC history – Travis Etienne.
Head coach Dabo Swinney and his two coordinators – Tony Elliott and Brent Venables have a lot to prove in 2021. Given the way that Clemson football has been embarrassed in their last two post-season games, there are a lot of rumblings that the Tigers cannot keep pace with the traditional powers in college football and are on the decline.
The Tigers have a lot of experience coming back in 2021 and the roster is loaded with talent. There should be no reason for Clemson football not to be in the College Football Playoff come late December – if they aren’t changes on the coaching staff would surely follow and that is something that Coach Swinney does not want to have to do.