Tag: Stanford Football

Clemson leads Stanford after competitive first half in Week 5 ACC matchup

Clemson is up on Stanford at halftime.

After consecutive blowout wins against Appalachian State and NC State that featured explosive first halves by the offense, the Clemson Tigers find themselves in a much tighter game against a Stanford Cardinal team after one half of football.

At halftime, the 15th-ranked Tigers lead Stanford, 17-7, in their Week 5 ACC matchup. Here are some of the first-half highlights.

For the second straight week, quarterback Cade Klubnik got Clemson on the board first by using his legs. On the Tigers’ first drive, Klubnik rolled out on a 3rd and 10 and took off for a 34-yard touchdown run and a 7-0 lead.

After Avieon Terrell picked off a pass from Stanford quarterback Ashton Daniels deep in Clemson territory, Klubnik wasted no time going back to work. He threw a deep ball to freshman Bryant Wesco, who ran underneath it for a 70-yard gain and a first-and-goal at the 10.

The Tigers settled for a 21-yard Nolan Hauser field goal and a 10-0 lead with 5:48 to play in the opening stanza.

It looked like the offense might be on their way to another explosive first half, but things stayed quiet until late in the first half. The Tigers took over at their own 46-yard line with 4:10 left and proceeded to march down the field. Phil Mafah’s 26-yard run gave Clemson a first-and-goal at the 5-yard line.

After the two-minute timeout. Klubnik threw a quick pass to tight end Jake Briningstool, who found the end-zone from four yards out to give the Tigers a 17-0 lead with 1:49 until halftime after Hauser’s extra point.

But as they’d done throughout much of the first half, Stanford continued to move the ball. They found the end-zone with under a minute to play when Daniels led the Cardinal on a seven play, 75-yard drive that ended with a 19-yard touchdown pass to Elic Ayomanor.

At halftime, Stanford has 230 yards of total offense and 12 first downs vs. 227 yards by Clemson and nine first downs.

Klubnik is 8-of-16 for 141 yards while Daniels is 7-of-15 for 64 yards and two interceptions.

Cade Klubnik explodes for 34-yard touchdown run, Clemson leads Stanford early

Cade Klubnik shows off the wheels again.

For the second straight week, the Clemson Tigers got on the board first thanks to Cade Klubnik’s legs.

After a forced fumble by Wade Woodaz gave Clemson the ball at the Stanford 34-yard line on the game’s first series Saturday night in Death Valley, Klubnik dropped back to pass on 3rd and 10 but found no one open.

The junior quarterback took off from 34 yards out for a 7-0 lead following Nolan Hauser’s extra point less than three minutes into the game.

A week earlier, in the Tigers’ ACC opener against NC State, Klubnik burned the Wolfpack defense for a 55-yard touchdown run on a read-option play for the game’s first score.

 

It’s the third straight game that Klubnik and Clemson’s offense has struck first.

Follow us @Clemson_Wire on X and on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news, notes and opinions. 

USA TODAY Sports experts offer predictions on Clemson vs Stanford

Here’s who USA TODAY Sports experts think will win Saturday’s game between Clemson and Stanford.

The Clemson Tigers are scheduled to face the Stanford Cardinal in ACC play Saturday in prime time at Death Valley.

As a new member of the ACC, it will be Stanford’s first trip to Clemson and the first time a team from the West Coast will visit Death Valley since Long Beach State opened the 1990 season against the Tigers. In that game, Clemson defeated Long Beach State, a team led by former NFL coach George Allen, 59-0.

As of Friday morning, oddsmakers have Clemson as a 21.5-point favorite over the Cardinal, per BetMGM Sportsbook. The staff at USA TODAY Sports all seem confident in that spread.

In their weekly college football predictions released on Thursday, the six-member panel of Dan Wolken, Paul Myerberg, Eddie Timanus, Scooby Axson, Jordan Mendoza and Erick Smith all picked the Tigers to win Saturday’s game against the Cardinal.

Clemson’s offense has been on fire since their season-opening loss to the Georgia Bulldogs in Atlanta, quickly flushing a Week 1 egg by lighting up Appalachian State in Week 2 and rival NC State last week.

The Tigers led the Wolfpack 28-0 after the first quarter and finished the afternoon with 523 yards of total offense, one game after racking up 712 yards against App State. Quarterback Cade Klubnik threw three touchdown passes and had a 55-yard touchdown run against NC State in a 16-of-24 showing through the air for 209 yards.

RELATED: What Dabo Swinney said ahead of Clemson’s Week 5 game against Stanford

Clemson moved up four spots in this week’s US LBM Coaches Poll and AP Top 25 Poll, reaching No. 15 in the Coaches Poll and No. 17 in the AP poll. Stanford (2-1) is unranked. The Cardinal defeated Syracuse, 26-24, last Friday at JMA Wireless Dome in New York.

Kickoff for Saturday’s game between Clemson and Stanford is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET. The game can be seen on ESPN.

Follow us @Clemson_Wire on X and on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news, notes and opinions. 

Latest update on Clemson-Stanford game amid Hurricane Helene

The latest from Clemson on Saturday’s game against Stanford.

With Hurricane Helene making landfall Thursday night and expected to impact a large portion of the southeast, the Clemson Tigers’ scheduled 7 p.m. ET start time against the Stanford Cardinal Saturday night in Death Valley is — for now — still a go.

While Clemson announced in a social media post late Thursday that the university’s main campus would be closed Friday, the school said in an update on its official website that Saturday’s game was still scheduled for a 7 p.m. kickoff.

Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm in the “Big Bend” region of Florida in the northwest corner of the state. The storm’s expected impact caused flash flood warnings to be issued from Florida and Georgia to the Carolinas.

The State‘s Chapel Fowler reached out to Clemson’s athletic department earlier in the day Thursday and reported:

“A Tigers athletic department spokesman told The State on Thursday that while university officials are actively monitoring the weather and have contingency plans in place, there are no major changes expected as of now for Saturday night’s game.”

Saturday’s game between the 15th-ranked Tigers and Stanford will be televised on ESPN.

Follow us @Clemson_Wire on X and on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news, notes and opinions. 

How does Clemson football match up historically vs Stanford and other California teams?

When Stanford visits No. 15 Clemson this weekend, it will mark a rare game between the Tigers and a team from the West Coast.

A bit of history will be made Saturday when the Stanford Cardinal visit the Clemson Tigers for the two teams’ Week 5 matchup.

For one, it will be Stanford’s first trip to Clemson. The two teams have only met once before, in the 1986 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville. Danny Ford’s Tigers defeated Jack Elway’s Stanford team that year, 27-21.

For another, Stanford’s visit will mark just the second time that a team from the West Coast will play in Death Valley. The only other program to do that was Long Beach State, Clemson’s opponent in the 1990 season opener. That same year, Tigers coach Dabo Swinney was in his sophomore season as a wide receiver at Alabama after earning a scholarship as a former walk-on player.

Saturday’s game against Stanford will mark the Tigers’ fourth matchup against a team that had belonged to the Pac-12 conference. The California Golden Bears and the USC Trojans are the only other former traditional Pac-12 members that Clemson has played.

So how does Clemson stack up against California teams historically in the small handful of times they’ve met?

Back in 1966, the Tigers met USC in a rare trip to the West Coast. Legendary coach John McKay’s Trojans shut out the Tigers, 30-0, at the L.A. Coliseum. USC finished the regular season 7-3 and won what would soon become the Pacific-8 (Pac 8) conference.

Clemson’s only other regular-season trip to California was back in 1951. Frank Howard’s team met the Pacific Tigers in Stockton in the fourth game of the season on Oct. 13. Pacific was ranked No. 20 and earned a 21-7 victory over Clemson, who would finish 7-2 in the regular season that year to earn a trip to the Gator Bowl to play the Miami Hurricanes on New Year’s Day 1952.

Some 40 years later, on New Year’s Day 1992, Clemson met the California Golden Bears in a top 15 matchup in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. Coach Bruce Snyder’s Cal squad put a 37-13 whipping on a Clemson team that had won the ACC that season. Cal finished the year ranked No. 8 in the final AP Top 25 poll. Clemson finished No. 18. The Tigers wouldn’t win the ACC again until 2011.

As for Clemson’s only other head-to-head meeting with Stanford, the 1986 Gator Bowl was billed by CBS broadcaster Verne Lundquist as a matchup of “force vs. finesse” and “power vs. pride.” Clemson took a 27-0 lead into halftime on the strength of touchdown runs from Chris Lancaster, Rodney Williams and Ray Williams.

The Cardinal got three second-half touchdown runs from Brad Muster, who would go on to become a first-round NFL draft pick by the Chicago Bears in 1988.

This past summer, Stanford and Cal officially joined the ACC following the collapse of the Pac-12 in 2023 amid the latest wave of conference realignment, which also saw the Oregon Ducks and Washington Huskies join USC and UCLA in the Big Ten.

On Tuesday, Swinney talked about the unique circumstances of Stanford’s visit to Clemson and what he called the “newness” of college football in the wake of conference realignment.

“There’s gonna be a lot of matchups that everybody loved traditionally that you may not see as often,” Swinney said. “But there will be some new matchups like this that you’ll say, ‘OK, that’s going to be interesting.’ This is a true East Coast-West Coast matchup.”

RELATED: Swinney gives an injury update on the Clemson Tigers after NC State

Kickoff for Clemson vs. Stanford is at 7 p.m. ET Saturday in Death Valley. The game can be seen on ESPN. The Tigers climbed four spots to No. 15 in this week’s US LBM Coaches Poll after their 59-35 victory over rival NC State last Saturday.

Follow us @Clemson_Wire on X and on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news, notes and opinions. 

What Dabo Swinney said ahead of Clemson’s Week 5 game against Stanford

Clemson is preparing for ACC newcomer Stanford this week. Here’s everything Dabo Swinney said at his weekly press conference Tuesday about both teams.

Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney spoke to reporters at his weekly press conference Tuesday, where he talked about the Tigers’ Week 5 opponent, the Stanford Cardinal, and what he’s seen of them on film. Swinney also shared injury updates on two key Clemson starters and more.

“Obviously a new opponent for us that we haven’t competed (against), but we’re excited to welcome Stanford into the league and have a great competition Saturday night,” Swinney said during his opening remarks Tuesday.

Stanford won its ACC opener against the Syracuse Orange last Friday. This is the Cardinal’s first year in the ACC after the collapse of the Pac-12 became official last summer.

When told by a reporter that it was only the second time in history that a team from the West Coast will visit Clemson (the other was Long Beach State in the Tigers’ 1990 season opener), Swinney expressed a bit of dismay at what he called the “newness” of college football matchups.

“It’s kind of crazy. One of my great friends in this business is David Shaw,” Swinney said of the former Stanford coach who led the Cardinal to their last Rose Bowl appearance. “I’ve got to reach out to him this week. Back in the day, we used to talk about that all the time (that) maybe one day we’ll meet up somewhere down the road …

“But here we are. That’s the newness of this era of college football,” Swinney added. “There’s gonna be a lot of matchups that everybody loved traditionally that you may not see as often, but there will be some new matchups like this that you’ll say, ‘OK, that’s going to be interesting.’ So this is a true East Coast-West Coast matchup.”

RELATED: Clemson-Stanford football game gets new TV broadcast crew

On the status of star defensive tackle Peter Woods and receiver Tyler Brown, Swinney said that both were still listed as day-to-day. Both missed Clemson’s ACC opener against NC State, although Swinney said Brown was “close” to taking the field, whereas Woods was listed as out in last Saturday’s official availability report.

“He did pregame (warmups) and just seeing where he was,” Swinney said of Brown. “It was good to see him get out there, but he wasn’t quite ready, and Peter we knew wasn’t going to be available for that one based on where he is. So again, still day-to-day and hopefully he’ll be ready to go this week.”

Kickoff for Saturday’s game against Stanford is set for 7 p.m. ET in Death Valley. The game can be seen on ESPN.

Here’s everything Swinney said at his weekly press conference.

Follow us @Clemson_Wire on X and on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news, notes and opinions. 

Clemson-Stanford football game gets new TV broadcast crew

Here’s who will be on the call for ESPN Saturday night when the Clemson Tigers host Stanford in Death Valley.

With the Clemson Tigers and Stanford Cardinal set to meet for the first time as ACC opponents, ESPN is sending a new broadcast crew to Death Valley for the Week 5 conference matchup.

ESPN’s broadcast crew of Mark Jones (play-by-play) and Roddy Jones (analyst) will have the call of Clemson vs. Stanford from the booth. Quint Kessenich will serve as the network’s sideline reporter. Kickoff for Clemson vs. Stanford is set for 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.

It’s the first time this season the Jones and Jones crew will call a Tigers (2-1) game. While the duo is in their first season doing play-by-play and color commentary/analysis together, Mark Jones is no stranger to college football viewers or sports fans in general.

An ESPN veteran, Jones has served as either a play-by-play announcer or sideline/courtside reporter for the network for more than three decades. He also serves as one of the lead play-by-play announcers for ESPN’s coverage of the NBA. On football broadcasts, Jones teamed with veteran analyst Louis Riddick last year.

RELATED: Update on kickoff time, TV info for Clemson football vs Florida State

Clemson moved up four spots in this week’s US LBM Coaches Poll and AP Top 25 Poll, reaching No. 15 in the Coaches Poll and No. 17 in the AP poll. Stanford (2-1) is unranked but is coming off a 26-24 victory over Syracuse last Friday at JMA Wireless Dome.

Follow us @Clemson_Wire on X and on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news, notes and opinions. 

Kickoff time, TV info announced for Clemson football’s matchup with Stanford

Kickoff time for Clemson vs. Stanford on Sept. 28 was announced Monday.

The ACC on Monday announced kickoff times for Week 5 games, including the 19th-ranked Clemson Tigers‘ showdown against the Stanford Cardinal in Death Valley on Sept. 28.

The Tigers (2-1) and Cardinal (1-1) will play in prime time at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on ESPN. It will mark the first meeting between the schools as conference opponents since Stanford joined the ACC along with California after the collapse of the Pac-12 in 2023.

Clemson and Stanford have met once before — in the 1986 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, a 27-21 win for coach Danny Ford’s team.

The Tigers are coming off a bye after defeating Appalachian State, 66-20, and will host NC State this Saturday in Death Valley at noon ET in a game that will be nationally televised on ABC. The Wolfpack (2-1) defeated Louisiana Tech, 30-20, over the weekend in Raleigh.

RELATED: NC State starting quarterback Grayson McCall out against Clemson

Here’s the full list of ACC kickoff times for Sept. 27-28, per the ACC’s press release Monday.

Friday, Sept. 27

  • Virginia Tech at Miami – 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN

Saturday, Sept. 28

  • Western Kentucky at Boston College — Noon ET on ACC Network
  • Holy Cross at Syracuse — Noon ET on ACCNX
  • Northern Illinois at NC State — Noon ET on The CW
  • Louisiana at Wake Forest — 3:30 p.m. ET on ACC Network
  • Louisville at Notre Dame — 3:30 p.m. ET on Peacock
  • North Carolina at Duke — 4 p.m. ET on ESPN2
  • Stanford at Clemson — 7 p.m. ET on ESPN
  • Florida State at SMU — 8 p.m. ET on ACC Network

Follow us @Clemson_Wire on X and on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Clemson Tigers news, notes and opinions. 

USC football’s Pac-12 greatest hits — Stanford

The years when great USC teams survived lesser Stanford teams were crucial moments for the Trojans.

Stanford is an interesting Pac-12 football program for USC and its fans to consider. The Cardinal have had some short bursts of time in which they were very, very good, but it has been hard for this program to become an annual threat over whole decades. The most sustained period of excellence at Stanford football in recent memory was the Jim Harbaugh-David Shaw period from 2009 through 2018. Stanford was really good for roughly a decade. Before that, it’s hard to find a prolonged period of quality for the Cardinal in a 75-year span. The last 10-year period in which Stanford was generally excellent — or close to it — was 1926 through 1935.

Because Stanford has rarely been elite, USC hasn’t had that many epic games or showdowns versus the Trees. Some of the more notable USC-Stanford Pac-12 (Pac-10, Pac-8) games were not meetings on the mountaintop. They were games in which USC had a ton to play for and Stanford tried to pull an upset.

We wrote about the 2004 Stanford game:

“This one was too close for comfort. USC squeaked by Stanford, 31-28, on September 25. The Trojans got away with a relatively shaky performance, the kind of game they couldn’t solve in other seasons when they stumbled on the road in the Pac-10 (such as 2006 and 2008 at Oregon State).”

The 1972 game was somewhat similar, although Stanford was coming off consecutive Rose Bowl wins that year. Nevertheless, it was USC’s least impressive performance of the season. The 1972 Trojans, regarded as the greatest football team in school history, beat Stanford by only nine on The Farm. No other USC opponent that season came closer than 17 points.

These two wins over Stanford, in 1972 and 2004, preserved unbeaten seasons and led to national championships.

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ACC starting quarterback rankings for 2024

Here are our ACC quarterback rankings for 2024, with projected starters.

We are still some time away from the start of the 2024 college football season, but that doesn’t stop us from looking ahead.

Today, we are looking at the ACC starting quarterbacks for 2024 and ranking them ahead of the season. This is just a preview, as it is still many months from the season, and things can change fast. While every team doesn’t have a starting quarterback on paper, we are making projections on these starters based on what we know right now.

The ACC is a bit different now, with the addition of new programs and new faces to the conference. Try not to get mad with these, they’re subjective! That said, here are our ACC starting quarterback rankings heading into the 2024 season.

– Updated 5/11