In 2006 I attended my first Clemson football game and saw CJ Spiller juke his way around Georgia Tech defenders and blaze to the end zone. Zombie Nation’s Kernkraft 400 blared on the speakers and a 70-year-old woman next to me jumped up and down, not letting her age be an excuse for not adding to the atmosphere.
In 2007, I rushed the field with pure glee as Clemson beat Florida State on Labor Day and then I suffered total despair as Matt Ryan and Boston College stole the ACC Atlantic crown from us in
Death Valley. The mood of an entire town swung on the performance of a bunch of 19-year-olds and while that’s silly and perhaps immature, it was an incredibly fun time to be a fan.
There are so many other fun moments. My favorites actually came before the championships. The 2013 win over Georgia and Aaron Murray brought us to belief. Growing up in metro Atlanta, I never really thought we could eclipse the Bulldogs. I lived all the way in Winston-Salem then and split season tickets with a friend who lived in Los Angeles just to get that one game and it was well worth it.
In 2015 there was the “Hurricane Game.” Most of you immediately know what I’m referencing. Clemson built a big lead on QB DeShone Kizer and Notre Dame and then had to hang on for dear life as Ben Boulware stuffed what would have been the game-tying two-point conversion.
In 2016, the Louisville game against Lamar Jackson was peak drama. That was probably the best sporting event I’ll ever attend. The two best QBs in the sport battled all night. Clemson was behind badly but stormed back only to leave too much time for Lamar Jackson to engineer a game-winning drive and Heisman moment (he won the Heisman anyway). The crowd screamed as loud as I’ve ever heard as they begged the defense to stop their march downfield. A false start penalty gave the defense a chance and then Marcus Edmond pushed out the Louisville ball carrier just shy of the first down to clinch a Clemson win. It was right at that moment I knew Clemson would win the National Championship. The level of heart and unshakable belief that team had was incredible.
Of course next came two national championships and another amazing run in 2019 where they would have got another if not for running into one of the greatest teams of all time in Joe Burrow and LSU.
Unfortunately, things haven’t been the same since. So much has changed and it started abruptly in 2020 with COVID, player empowerment, slogans, and sparse crowds. Clemson made the four-team playoff, but the chaos around the sport (remember FSU canceling the game and blaming us?) sapped the fun from it.
In 2021, the crowds returned and I was sure to be at the opener in Charlotte for a rivalry game against Georgia. Clemson wouldn’t reach the endzone in an ugly rock fight of a game that ended 10-3. A 4-3 start sapped all the fun out of the season when the best-case scenario became the Cheez-It bowl.
The following years weren’t all bad. They went 37-17 from 2022-2025 which averages out to 9.3 wins and 3.8 losses per year. There are plenty of programs that would take that in a heartbeat, however, perhaps not a ton with the same recent history and investment as Clemson. That’s what this conversation can’t miss. Clemson isn’t giving their fans what they rightly should expect given the resources committed to the program.
Fair Expectations
Clemson is giving the vast majority of their revenue sharing dollars to football. Men’s basketball is only getting ~11%. Clemson has three national championships and a long history of strong fan support. Over the last 50 years, Clemson can’t quite bill themselves as a top-tier blue blood like Ohio State and Alabama, but they’re far closer to them in terms of history, resources, and commitment than to teams like Duke, SMU, or Georgia Tech.
Let’s contrast this to Clemson basketball. Clemson basketball is behind the 8-ball. North Carolina has more history and prestige. They spend triple the amount of revenue share dollars on basketball than Clemson and plenty more in NIL. Likewise for Duke, Louisville, and many other programs. Clemson is almost certainly outside the top 5 in the ACC in terms of investment in the basketball team. Despite that, they beat Louisville and North Carolina plus three other teams that made the tournament.
Clemson basketball was so much fun for me this year. I took my now 3-year-old son to a game and we had a memorable experience. I went to the Miami game with a friend and had a blast. I went to Atlanta and saw the Tigers beat Georgia Tech. Yes, Clemson basketball was undeniably more successful than the football team, but they still lost in the Round of 64. This wasn’t some remarkable banner hanging campaign. What made them so fun to cheer for is they squeezed every ounce of potential out of what they had.
They didn’t have the resources to land a freshman like Mikel Brown (Louisville), but their redshirt freshman Ace Buckner developed throughout the year and became a gutsy attacking guard by the end of the season. They couldn’t land a European professional player like Thijs De Ridder (Virginia), but RJ Godfrey returned and found ways to score in the point against an NBA-bound 7-footer in Henri Veesaar (UNC).
The team wasn’t the most talented, but they fought and clawed and were imminently likable. That’s where the big contrast to football stands out. The football team had nine players drafted, the basketball team had none. I asked a friend about his feelings on Clemson football and he said “I just want to feel like we’re using every resource we can to build the best team and the best coaching staff we can. I will live with whatever the results come if that’s the case. It just hasn’t felt like that’s been the mission for the last five years unfortunately.”
That hit it on the nose for me. Worse than losing is not doing your best — Best is the Standard after all. From Clemson’s decisions to hire assistants with minimal experience — most of which have now been replaced or grown into their role (kudos to WR Coach Tyler Grisham) — to eschewing the transfer portal for several years, there’s no denying that Clemson football has failed to do everything they can (within the rules) to win.
Fan Experience
Since Clemson’s rise to fame from 2015-2019, things have changed. Back in 2015, I paid $300 to park in Brooks lot. I was eventually moved further away, first to a lot down the road, then to NewSpring with a bus shuttle to campus, then to Seneca Meadows, and eventually over to Calhoun Corners. Increased giving wasn’t enough to stop the slide as I found myself walking 25 minutes to the stadium.
During that time Clemson also enacted additional safety measures with metal detectors at each gate. This is certainly a reasonable thing to accommodate, but it adds another 20 minutes to the path from parking to sitting.
Last year, I went up to Clemson for the LSU game. The atmosphere was excellent, but the game heartbreaking. Getting home after 1:00am and running on fumes at church wasn’t ideal. Nonetheless, a week later we turned around, loaded up the 2-year old, drove 2.5 hours, parked and walked 25 minutes, had a brief (awesome) tailgate, and then fought lines to get into the stadium. After all that, a long lightning delay sent us packing for nap time after just 5 minutes of the game. At that point I started to wonder is this really worth it?
Solutions
Maybe the worst thing Clemson did was take all that money they made during the glory days and pour it into construction. They built practice fields, softball fields, and memorials on top of parking lots. They literally built a facility to manage facilities and put it on Seneca Creek Meadows parking. What’s done is done, but you certainly can stop. They’re building a parking deck which isn’t ideal for entry/exit or tailgating, but it at least pulls fans closer to the stadium. and increases inventory. Fixing this problem has to be a priority.
Another issue with parking is that there is no way to buy/sell parking passes digitally. Sometimes you don’t know if you can go to a game until just a few days before. For selling digital tickets to the game, that’s no problem, but to list, sell, and ship parking passes through UPS, that’s often not doable. Not only is that a frustrating sunk cost for the seller, but it lowers supply and pushes parking prices up.
They also must find ways to upgrade the gameday experience when it isn’t a night game. Night games with the fireworks during the Hill entrance and drone shows before the fourth quarter are special, but what about a noon game against Troy or Wake Forest? Losing the balloon release was a pretty devastating blow. Who wants to stand in the September sun and listen to “Who Ya Wit” blare on the sound system? Are we excited about the Professor of the Game, the Recycler of the Game, and the Student of the Game?
Military Appreciation Day is worth attending just for the halftime show. The Healthcare Hero of the Game is always touching and the Military Hero of the game is a nice patriotic touch. Still, they’ve got to find more to liven up the day games.
My Expectations
My friend who questioned if they’re doing everything they can said it best. With that in mind, we absolutely cannot have a repeat of past seasons where unconventional decisions to trust “their guys” led to massive roster gaps. We saw it two years ago at DE and we ought not see it at offensive line or QB this year. Those are spots where most fans thought a move was needed. Obviously, Coach Swinney is closest to the situation and should know best, but failing to make a move that seemed necessary to the typical fan certainly brings us back to that feeling of “are they really doing everything they can to win?”
We also cannot have a repeat of last season when they looked flat and flustered against an atrocious Syracuse squad last season. I want to see a team that plays to their potential and fights for the paw on their jersey. If they lose to LSU and Miami because they’re just less talented or have a few unfortunate bounces that day, so be it, but losing to UNC or Cal like they lost to Syracuse is inexcusable.
If we appropriately calibrate for Clemson’s level of investment in the football program, the reality is perhaps only Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas have a right to expect to be in the final four most years. Clemson doesn’t have the money of an Ohio State, Texas A&M, or Texas Tech, the advantageous location of a Georgia or a Miami, or the history and prestige of a Notre Dame or Michigan. Still, Clemson should at least expect to be in the final 12 that comprise the current college football playoff field most seasons. Can you name 12 programs that have a more favorable combination of history, prestige, revenue share dollars, NIL dollars, pageantry, facilities, and recruiting locale?
I want a team that uses their resources well, fights, claws, and makes us proud. If they miss that 12-team playoff field here and there, I can live with that as long as they’re consistently in the discussion and doing everything they can do to be in it. It’s that grit and fight that has made the basketball program so much to follow and the football program should be able to do the same only with infinitely more resources.
Here’s to Clemson earning the support we all know its faithful fans will give either way.
