Road schedule sets up nicely in 2021, except for that Friday night in Syracuse

The Dome and Orange coach Dino Babers will once again host a Friday night game against Clemson.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Jan 28 15:46:30 GMT-04:00 2021

Clemson’s 2021 football schedule was released Thursday morning, and sticking out like a big old pimple on your forehead is that Friday night game at Syracuse.

The schedule is what we expected from an opponent standpoint, and I told you earlier in the week what I expected the home dates to be and those turned out to be true. But we didn’t know the exact road dates and when opponents would fall on the schedule. Now that we do, I have a few thoughts.

Let’s start with that Friday night game at Syracuse. Clemson will seek its fourth consecutive win against Syracuse on Friday, Oct. 15, which would match Clemson's longest winning streak in the all-time series from 2013-16. In its last visit to Syracuse, Clemson avenged a 27-24 upset road loss from 2017 with a dominating 41-6 primetime win at The Dome in 2019.

But let’s face it, almost no one likes Friday night college football games except maybe the networks, and since the leagues are run by network dollars, we have to see those games. And all of those games interfere with the first bastion of Friday nights, high school football.

With the NFL, there's Monday and Thursday night football, and even some Saturday games in December, and the usual Sunday games. And for the colleges, which traditionally played all their games on Saturday, expansion has come into the middle of the week particularly for the Mid-American Conference games, and into Fridays, which has affected Atlantic Coast Conference teams. A few years ago, Virginia played three games on Friday night and Virginia Tech played two.

As someone who has been to every game Clemson game in Syracuse – including that Friday the 13th nightmare in 2017 – I don’t like it for travel reasons. A lot of Clemson fans I know like to get to Syracuse either late on Thursday or early Friday and visit the Finger Lakes region or visit Cooperstown. My wife Nikki and I always make the trek to Cooperstown just so we can sit down at the Doubleday Café (the first window seat) and eat a bowl of chili and watch the world go by, including orange-clad Clemson fans.

Maybe that will have to wait until Saturday this year.

As for the rest of the schedule, the home schedule is less than exciting. As I wrote earlier this week, and I won’t delve into it again, UConn and SC State won’t cause a scramble for tickets (even though I love the Marching 101), and the ACC schedule isn’t thrilling. As of right now, I don’t see any ranked teams on the schedule, and it says a lot about the state of the ACC Atlantic Division when Boston College might be the best team to visit Death Valley this season.

The road schedule has its merits. I can’t wait to make our first trip to Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, and even though I don’t mind the cold, I am thankful the game is being played in late October and not later. I know a few Clemson media members who are big Steeler fans so it should be a big thrill for them.

I always like the trip to Louisville because we have friends up there and trips to Carter-Finley Stadium are always nice because they have the best press box food in the ACC.

Clemson opens the season against Georgia in Charlotte, then comes home for that date against SC State and then hosts Georgia Tech. A road trip to Raleigh follows, and then the home game against Boston College. After that is the open date and then the Tigers get serious with what might be eight consecutive weeks of football. The Tigers are home just twice in October – the 2nd and the 30th – and have just two home dates in November. That means that after that October 2nd home date against Boston College, there will be only three home dates the rest of the season. The truncated home schedule (because of the game against Georgia in Charlotte) means just two home games in each month. One thing is for sure, you won’t get tired of making the trip every weekend. It’s all spread out.

The regular season finale against South Carolina should be interesting, at least to a point. New head coach Shane Beamer has been a part of the rivalry and he knows what it means to both teams and to the people of the state, so he will have his group ready to play. But as he tries to find warm bodies by stalking transfer portal, you kind of get the sense next season will be rough for the Gamecocks. There might be a lot of orange in Columbia.

Clemson 2021 schedule

Sept. 4 Georgia (Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte)

Sept. 11 SC State

Sept. 18 Georgia Tech

Sept. 25 at NC State

Oct. 2 Boston College

Oct. 15 at Syracuse (Friday)

Oct. 23 at Pitt

Oct. 30 Florida State

Nov. 6 at Louisville

Nov. 13 UConn

Nov. 20 Wake Forest