Clemson football schedules The Citadel for home opener in 2020

Clemson adds The Citadel to their schedule for one non-conference game. 

Despite all the uncertainty surrounding whether college football will occur in the fall, ACC, SEC, and Big-12 teams are moving forward with their fall schedule.

Although these three conferences are committed to playing this upcoming season, they have still had to rearrange their schedules due to the Pac-12 and Big Ten canceling their respective fall seasons, as well as limits on non-conference games put in place by the conferences themselves.

The SEC has switched to an all-conference schedule, but the ACC and Big-12 are both allowing one non-conference game, which has led the Clemson Tigers to schedule theirs. And they certainly lucked out with an easy opponent.

Clemson has scheduled The Citadel Bulldogs as their one non-conference opponent with the game slated to take place on Sept. 19, which will serve as the home opener.

“We are extremely excited that we were able to keep The Citadel on our schedule for 2020, as annually hosting an FCS opponent from the state of South Carolina remains a key point of our scheduling philosophy,” Director of Athletics Dan Radakovich said in a statement. “We are grateful to both the ACC and The Citadel for their interest and hard work in preserving this non-conference game for our student-athletes, the Clemson community and the state of South Carolina.”

The Tigers were already set to take on The Citadel as one of their usual number of non-conference games on Nov. 14, but it has now been pushed to earlier in the season due to COVID-19 concerns.

Clemson football will open the 2020 season against The Citadel on Sept. 12 which will also serve as the home opener for the Tigers.

It may seem like Clemson is just picking this originally scheduled non-conference game to fill this slot in order to ensure an easy win, but there’s a catch in the ACC’s new rules for this season that makes the Bulldogs the best option for the Tigers.

The ACC has mandated that each team’s non-conference game is played against an opponent within that team’s home state. And since Clemson and The Citadel are both in South Carolina, they are eligible to play each other.

Also, the other out of conference teams that Clemson had originally scheduled along with The Citadel were Akron and South Carolina. South Carolina cannot play out of conference games due to the SEC’s rules for this season and Akron is out of state.

Many are again expecting Clemson to dominate ACC play as they have in years past, and with the ACC’s new rule for non-conference games, it practically guarantees that Clemson will not get tripped up outside of ACC play.

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