Clemson has stumbled its way into the ACC championship game.
And the Tigers, even after a demoralizing home loss to rival South Carolina on Saturday, have their clearest path yet to the College Football Playoff.
Clemson Tigers
Syracuse upset No. 6 Miami, 42-38, on Saturday night in New York to drop the Hurricanes to 6-2 in conference play and send Clemson, which finished 7-1 in ACC play two weeks ago, to next week’s conference championship vs. SMU.
Clemson will play SMU on Saturday, Dec. 7 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. The game will kick off at 8 p.m. on ABC.
In the 12-team CFP, the top five highest ranked conference champion teams get automatic bids to the field and the top four highest ranked conference champs also receive top four seeds and first-round byes into the quarterfinal round.
Clemson (9-3, 7-1 ACC) all but lost its chances of an at-large bid earlier Saturday afternoon after coach Dabo Swinney’s Tigers lost 17-14 to rival South Carolina.
But the Tigers now have a clear path to the field: Win and in. If they beat SMU, they’d likely be in position for a top four seed, too. If a top four seed, the ACC automatic bid to the CFP would likely get sent to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta for a Jan. 1 game.
An ACC championship loss next Saturday would leave Clemson at 9-4 and with a less than 1% to qualify for the field as an at-large bid, per ESPN’s Playoff Predictor.
In that situation, Clemson would likely be headed to the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando as the highest ranked ACC team in the CFP Top 25 that isn’t in the 12-team CFP field (or another high-end ACC bowl if Miami were to jump them).
Nov 30, 2024; Syracuse, New York, USA; Syracuse Orange quarterback Kyle McCord (right) celebrates with tight end Jamie Tremble (left) following a game against the Miami Hurricanes at the JMA Wireless Dome.
Nov 30, 2024; Syracuse, New York, USA; Syracuse Orange quarterback Kyle McCord (right) celebrates with tight end Jamie Tremble (left) following a game against the Miami Hurricanes at the JMA Wireless Dome. Rich Barnes Imagn Images
Fran Brown shouts out Dabo
Swinney spoke during his postgame news conference late Saturday afternoon like a man whose team was rapidly approaching the end of its season.
“We’ve got one game left,” he said.
At that point, Swinney hadn’t tuned into the Syracuse-Miami game. But he wouldn’t have been too far off, as Miami built up a 21-0 lead by the early second quarter.
The Orange, under first-year coach Fran Brown, answered with 21 straight points and had things tied by the early third quarter before taking the lead and eventually completing the largest comeback in school history at the JMA Wireless Dome.
A joyful Brown, well aware of the stakes, shouted out Swinney during his ESPN postgame interview, conducted as Orange fans stormed the field.
“Hey Dabo Swinney, congrats,” Brown said, grinning. “I got you in, baby!”
Syracuse quarterback and Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord was 26-36 for 380 yards and three touchdowns, and running back LeQuint Allen had 82 rushing yards and two touchdowns, including the game-winner at the 9:16 mark.
Trailing Syracuse 42-35, Miami stalled in the red zone and took a 27-yard field goal on 4th and goal from Cuse’s 10 to make the score 42-38, despite having star transfer quarterback Cam Ward and a host of offensive weapons at its disposal.
Coach Mario Cristobal’s team never got the ball back. Syracuse ran out the clock with an eight-play, 42-yard drive and clinched a win when receiver Trebor Pena got 11 yards and a first down on a wide receiver reverse with about 1:40 remaining.
“You’re welcome,” McCord wrote on X (formerly Twitter), tagging Clemson.
Clemson will be making its record 10th appearance in the ACC championship game and its first since 2022. The Tigers have never played SMU, a first-year expansion team formerly of the AAC that finished the regular season at 11-1 (8-0 ACC).
Per the ACC, the Tigers’ bench will be on the south side of the stadium because they were the second team to clinch a spot, SMU’s bench will be on the north side and the Mustangs will also be the designated “home team” for the game.
Chapel Fowler has covered Clemson football, among other topics, for The State since June 2022. He’s a Denver, N.C., native, a UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus and a pickup basketball enthusiast with previous stops at the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer and Chatham (N.C.) News + Record. His work has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors, South Carolina Press Association and North Carolina Press Associat
ion.
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