Here’s why Clemson will make history against the Texas Longhorns.
For all intents and purposes, the Clemson Tigers‘ first-round College Football Playoff game against the Texas Longhorns will look and feel exactly the same as an ESPN broadcast.
The game will use ESPN announcers Mark Jones, Roddy Jones and Quint Kessenich and feature an ESPN camera crew.
Only the Tigers aren’t playing on ESPN. Clemson vs. Texas will be televised on TNT, with kickoff at 4 p.m. ET Saturday from Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin. It will mark the Tigers’ first game of the CFP era to not be televised on ESPN.
The reason for that? Back in May, ESPN announced a five-year agreement to license select CFP games to TNT Sports beginning in 2024. Before then, ESPN had televised every game of the College Football Playoff era beginning in 2014, so Saturday will mark the first time in many years that a postseason Clemson football game will be broadcast on a TV channel other than ESPN.
Depending on your age, this isn’t so strange. Long before the playoff era and before ESPN had established itself as the home of all but a select few bowl games each year, the Tigers appeared on each of the “Big Three” networks — NBC, ABC and CBS — for postseason games.
Those who watched Clemson’s 22-15 win over Tom Osborne’s Nebraska Cornhuskers for the school’s first national championship at the 1982 Orange Bowl recall that the game was televised on NBC.
Three years prior to that, Clemson was involved in one of the most memorable games in college football history. The Dec. 29, 1978 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville saw the Tigers face the Ohio State Buckeyes and coach Woody Hayes. Hayes famously punched Clemson’s Charlie Bauman, leading to a benches-clearing fight in a nationally televised contest on ABC. Clemson won, 17-15.
Hayes was fired the following morning after 28 seasons in Columbus and never coached another college football game.
More recently, the Tigers’ last postseason game to not be shown on ESPN was the Gator Bowl on New Year’s Day 2009 in Dabo Swinney’s first season as coach. Swinney had taken over six games into the season and managed to guide the Tigers to a 7-5 regular season. Clemson faced Nebraska in a nationally televised game on CBS. The Huskers erased a 14-3 halftime deficit to win, 26-21.
While Clemson’s TV appearance on TNT will mark a first for the Tigers in school history, the same is true for the actual matchup itself. The Tigers and Longhorns have never met on the gridiron.
Clemson (10-3) is ranked No. 13 in the US LBM Coaches Poll and No. 16 in the CFP rankings. The Tigers are the No. 12 seed in the playoffs after their 34-31 win over SMU in the ACC Championship Game. Nolan Hauser hit an ACC title game record 56-yard field goal as time expired to give Swinney his ninth ACC title and seventh playoff appearance in 17 seasons as Clemson’s coach.
Texas, ranked No. 4 in the coaches poll and No. 3 in the CFP rankings, is coming off a 22-19 overtime loss to the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta.
The winner of Clemson vs. Texas will face the Big 12 champion and No. 4 seed Arizona State Sun Devils in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on New Year’s Day at noon ET.
Contact/Follow us @Clemson_Wire on X, and like our page on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news and notes, plus opinions.
