This agreement fills in the years that they would not play as part of the ACC agreement
Link: https://fightingirish.com/notre-dame-and-clemson-announce-12-game-football-series/
This October will be the last time SC plays at ND for a long time.
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Clemson has been an upper tier dweller for quite a while now. They've had a few down years, but by the time 2027 rolls around, Dabo will have adjusted to the game, and should have them back in that upper tier. I'd even dare say that Dabo will have them ready this year to contend again.
We've only recently entered that echelon, and need to prove that we can stay in that rarefied air.
If we're as good as we hope to be, then we should be hanging with, and yes, beating upper tier teams at least half of the time. This will be a good acid test to see how far we've come along.
Some may point to our having taken out a #1 Clemson team in 2020, but we need to be realistic about this... Had COVID not robbed them of half of their starting defense (all of whom are NFL players), they would have beaten us soundly like they did in the ACC Championship game.
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Clemson every year is great for SOS. This is a really good proactive move.
I can see USC going away real soon due to their traveling situation. We also seem to be pulling more recruits out of ACC and south territory than traditionally. Hitting Carolinas, Georgia and Florida hard.
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It does upset me that we are more than likely no longer going to play our true rival- USC
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We only have one real rival and that is USC.
If they chicken out I'd prefer to add Texas.
south as part of the ACC scheduling agreement
They'll already have a lot of solid teams in their conference and would not want to overload. Clemson, on the other hand, well, the ACC has a few good teams for now, but the schedule for now doesn't give them that much strength of schedule compared to the SEC and Big 10. I'd say it works for both parties for a lot of the same reasons.
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