William Stehn
A win over the LSU Tigers at Memorial Stadium would shoot Clemson into a national championship contender.
This coming weekend, the Clemson football team will host its home opener against the incoming LSU Tigers in a top-10 clash.
These two teams seem to meet only at the highest level, with the last meeting in January 2020 for the national championship, where LSU completed the perfect undefeated season with a 42-25 win.
That was the last time Clemson got as far as the national championship game, seeing a College Football Playoff drought from 2021 to the 2024 season that put the program in the backseat of being a national championship contender.
But head coach Dabo Swinney has all the pieces he needs to run the table. He returns over 80% of starters from last season’s team, including 85% of his offense with senior quarterback Cade Klubnik, who begins his third season as the Tigers’ starting quarterback.
The Austin, Texas, native saw record highs in his second season as a starter in 2024, showing growth from an adversity-filled sophomore season to emerge as one of the top returning quarterbacks in the country.
While media buzz has him as a Heisman frontrunner, it’s only Saturday that he cares about right now.
“At the end of the day, I want to go win,” Klubnik said. “That’s the stat that really matters … I want to go win every game and just take it one game at a time. One game at a time and one day at a time, and you can’t go win them all until you win the first one.”
Klubnik is back with plenty of returning weapons: redshirt junior Antonio Williams and sophomore duo Bryant Wesco Jr. and T.J. Moore. All three receivers finished with over 650 receiving yards and at least five touchdowns, with Williams recording 12 total scores.
What is different with this team is how Swinney has actively changed different facets of the team. First, after the team’s ACC Championship win, he shifted wide receiver Adam Randall into a backfield player, declared as the team’s starting running back for the Week 1 game.
“He’s tough as nails and he’s smart,” Klubnik said. “He knows the protections like the back of his hand now, and just Coach Spiller and all of those guys have been really good.”
Next, he added new defensive coordinator Tom Allen, who was with Penn State’s defense a season ago when the Nittany Lions made it to the College Football Playoff semifinal. Allen developed players like linebacker Abdul Carter, who was selected with the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s NFL draft.
Standouts T.J. Parker and Peter Woods will look to mold into top prospects through Allen, similar to what he did with Carter.
The biggest surprise of the offseason, perhaps, is that Swinney decided to pick up three transfers in the transfer portal for the first time. Purdue defensive end Will Heldt, Alabama linebacker Jeremiah Alexander and Southeast Missouri State receiver Tristan Smith will all serve as X factors to the Tiger team.
On the other side of the field, LSU head coach Brian Kelly is still looking for his first Week 1 win with the purple and gold since joining the team in the 2022 season. His Tigers have not seen a College Football Playoff appearance since they reached the mountaintop in January of 2020, but this might be his best chance to get to it.
The reason is senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who begins his second season as the starter after sitting behind Heisman winner Jayden Daniels in 2023. He enters his final season with LSU on the SEC’s preseason first team, being chosen over a plethora of talented SEC signal callers.
“He’s a talented, talented player,” Allen said. “He may be the best quarterback we play the entire season, so just a ton of respect for him and what he’s put on film. Obviously, the talent that surrounds him is impressive (too).”
At running back, sophomore Caden Durham will look to be stopped by Clemson. Durham finished with 753 rushing yards and six scores on the ground, looking to be a catalyst for the LSU offense.
It was a story of the team’s defense a year ago, which struggled to defend the run in the most important moments. Clemson finished 16th in the ACC in run defense, allowing over 160 yards per game from opposing backs. It will be a question of whether the issue can be plugged, and if so, the Tigers’ chances of a home opener win get a lot better.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 at Memorial Stadium, and the game will be broadcast on ABC.