Clemson took care of Furman. Now the fun part starts: trying to figure out where the Tigers are headed next.
Saturday’s 45–10 win locked in bowl eligibility for the 21st straight season, and national analysts are already split on where Clemson will spend the end of December — with a clear early theme: pack a coat, or at least a carry-on.
ESPN: Tampa or El Paso for Dabo and the Tigers
ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach don’t agree on the zip code, but they agree Clemson is headed somewhere off its usual postseason path.
Bonagura projects Clemson to the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa on Dec. 19, facing South Florida. The Bulls are chasing the Group of Five College Football Playoff bid, and Schlabach actually has them in his 12-team CFP bracket.
Schlabach sends Clemson to the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl in El Paso on Dec. 31 against Arizona, an 8–3 Wildcats squad that would be playing relatively close to home and brings real juice as a Power Four opponent.
Either option would be a departure from the Tigers’ usual New Year’s Six or CFP destinations — and a reminder of how different this era looks compared to the playoff run that defined the last decade.
SI and CBS: Sun Bowl or Fenway Trip on Tap?
Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports offer their own twist on the Tigers’ postseason map.
SI’s Bryan Fischer lines up with Schlabach, also projecting Clemson to the Sun Bowl vs. Arizona, a matchup that would give the Tigers a ranked-caliber test and a national TV window to close the year.
CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford sends Clemson in a very different direction: north to Boston for the Fenway Bowl against Army West Point. The Black Knights still need one more win in two remaining games to qualify, but Crawford expects them to get it done.
Both scenarios would give Clemson a fresh opponent and setting — and in the case of Army, a stylistic contrast that would test the Tigers’ physicality and discipline for four quarters.
Athlon: Another Fenway Projection, Different Opponent
Athlon Sports’ Stevan Lassan also has Clemson headed to the Fenway Bowl, but swaps the opponent.
In his projection, the Tigers would face Memphis on Dec. 27 in Boston in a traditional ACC vs. American matchup. Memphis started the year as the Group of Five team in the first CFP rankings on Nov. 4, before two straight losses knocked the Tigers out of the playoff picture.
That pairing would be strength-on-strength: a Clemson defense that’s carried stretches of the season against a Memphis offense that has lived in the national conversation for much of the fall.
New Stage, New History Wherever Clemson Lands
One common thread in all three projected destinations — Gasparilla, Sun and Fenway — is that Clemson has never played in any of them.
Wherever the Tigers land, they’ll be writing a new postseason chapter. That stands in sharp contrast to recent years, when bowl destinations felt almost routine:
- 2023: Gator Bowl
- 2022: Orange Bowl
- Pre-2022: Cheez-It Bowl, then six straight College Football Playoff appearances
This year’s projections underscore the reset Clemson is living through: still consistent enough to be a December regular, but no longer penciled into the playoff bracket or top-tier New Year’s Six every season.
Palmetto Bowl Still the Biggest Variable
For now, one game can still move the needle.
Clemson sits at 6–5 with one more regular-season test, the Palmetto Bowl at South Carolina on Saturday in Williams-Brice Stadium. A road win over the Gamecocks would give the Tigers a four-game winning streak, a 7–5 finish and a little more leverage in the ACC’s bowl pecking order.
A loss would send them into bowl season at 6–6, likely locking in a lower-tier slot and shifting projections even further toward early-December dates.
Either way, the streak lives on: for the 21st straight season, Clemson will be bowling. The only question is whether Tiger fans should be booking flights to Tampa, El Paso or Boston — and how much momentum they’ll be taking with them.