On the Packer and Durham show this week on ACC Network, Mark Packer and Wes Durham weighed in on Clemson’s 2022 schedule, which was released Monday.
Durham pointed to the conclusion of Clemson’s 2022 campaign — the three consecutive home games against Louisville, Miami and South Carolina to end the regular season — as what jumps out to him about the Tigers’ 2022 slate.
It will represent Clemson’s first time ending a regular season with three consecutive home games since 2012, when the Tigers hosted Maryland, NC State and South Carolina to end the regular season.
“The thing that pops off the page about Clemson’s schedule is the three home games in a row to finish at the end,” Durham said. “It’s been a while, Pack, since that’s happened.”
Packer, though, has a different perspective about Clemson’s schedule next season. He is circling the stretch of four straight games at Wake Forest (Sept. 24), vs. NC State (Oct. 1), at Boston College (Oct. 8) and at Florida State (Oct. 15).
Packer believes Clemson must figure out its quarterback situation with rising junior D.J. Uiagalelei and five-star freshman Cade Klubnik prior to that stretch of games, which he thinks will go a long way toward determining what type of season the Tigers have.
“It doesn’t pop at me, Wes. You’ve got a different view than I do,” he said. “I think this. To me — I could be a thousand-percent wrong — the million-dollar question at Clemson is what happens at quarterback, right. D.J. Uiagalelei, does he improve? Does the Klubnik kid come in from Texas and just steal the thunder? I don’t know how that’s going to play out.
“Clemson better figure out the quarterback answer, though, early, because I think the stretch of four consecutive at Wake, the showdown with NC State, at BC, at Florida State — that’s four consecutive weeks, three on the road, and it’s early — to me, determines what the Tigers are all about.”
Packer added that the Tigers will “be a problem” at Death Valley if they’re undefeated at home heading into the month of November with those three straight home games to end the season.
“They get through the middle of that schedule, and if they’re still rocking and rolling, I think they take their chances at Notre Dame and they welcome everybody to Death Valley,” he said. “I mean, listen — if we get to November and the Tigers still haven’t been beaten at home and they cruise away and find a way through the mines there, they’ll be a problem in November in Death Valley.”
Durham pointed out that next season will mark the first time since 2006, and just the second time since 1996, that the Tigers will have only one road game after Oct. 15 — the date at Notre Dame on Nov. 5.
Clemson enters the 2022 season with a 34-game win streak at home — a school record for both the longest home winning streak and longest home unbeaten streak in school history (as well as the nation’s longest active home winning streak).
“How many in a row have they won at home? 300 in a row?” Packer quipped. “Good luck with that.”
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