Clemson Football learned their full 2024 regular season schedule on Wednesday.
These are the twelve matchups.
August 31st: Georgia Bulldogs (in Atlanta, Georgia)
September 7th: Appalachian State Mountaineers
September 21st: NC State Wolfpack
September 28th: Stanford Cardinal
October 5th: at Florida State Seminoles
October 12th: at Wake Forest Demon Deacons
October 19th: Virginia Cavaliers
November 2nd: Louisville Cardinals
November 9th: at Virginia Tech Hokies
November 16th: at Pittsburgh
November 23rd: The Citadel
November 30th: South Carolina
We have known the Tigers would be opening the season against Georgia in the opening game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and that is easily the toughest opponent they will face in the regular season.
The other big name we knew would be there is Florida State. This game has tended to be earlier in the season in the last few years, and it does fall in the first half, but this isn’t a bad placement. Clemson will get four games under their belts and a bye week before they must travel to Tallahassee.
The Tigers will have two byes this season: September 14th and October 26th. This is one of those odd calendar years where it is possible.
One thing I wanted to see was how the road schedule fell for Clemson this season.
The full tally for Clemson’s 2024 season is: 7 home games, 4 road games and one neutral site game.
The road games come in pairs of back-to-back weeks. After visiting Tallahassee, the tigers will visit Winston-Salem. They will travel to Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh on consecutive weekends in November.
Playing FSU at Doak Campbell was going to be tough regardless of which week the game fell. I would rather not play on the road the weekend after, but Wake isn’t expected to be one of the stronger squads in the ACC this season.
Blacksburg and Pittsburgh in consecutive November weekends is not ideal. You might recall that Clemson did not fare well on the road in 2023.
Other highlights and speculations:
The scariest game of the season for me is September 7th against Appalachian State. The Mountaineers are a solid program and no one wants a trap game in Week 2. It doesn’t matter if they win or lose against Georgia – either way, it is a classic letdown spot.
NC State in Week 3 isn’t a peach either because it will be so hard to know what to expect from the Wolfpack. On paper, they could be very good.
One of the ACC’s newest members will visit Death Valley in Week 5 when the Stanford Cardinal comes to town.
I would guess that the October 19th game against Virginia and former coordinator Tony Elliott will be Homecoming.
The Tigers will have four consecutive games against ACC opponents that they did not play last season: Virginia, Louisville, at Virginia Tech, and at Pittsburgh.
Logically, the November 23rd game against The Citadel will be Military Appreciation Day.