Kickoff times set for Clemson football's first home games of 2018

Game times have been set for the first two Clemson home football games of the season.

The Tigers will open the season Saturday, Sept. 1, when they host Furman at Death Valley. Kickoff will be at 12:20 p.m. on the ACC Network.

Clemson will then travel to Texas A&M for its first game against an FBS opponent on Sept. 8. The SEC will announce that kickoff time at a later date.

The Tigers will return home to face Georgia Southern on Sept. 15 with kickoff slated for 3:30 p.m. The matchup will be televised by either ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.

Clemson in 2018 plays eight bowl teams that finished with winning records in 2017. The slate also includes a pair of nonconference games against SEC teams for the eighth time in the past nine years.

The schedule is unusual in that Clemson will not have consecutive home games until the last two games of the season, the first time that has happened since 1986, when the Tigers had just five home games. The schedule alternates home and away games for the first 11 games of the season, a first in school history.

Dabo Swinney’s Tigers will play all 12 of their regular season games on Saturdays for the first time since 2015 and for just the second time in the past seven years. The open date is on October 13, in the middle of the schedule.

Clemson 2018 football schedule

(HOME GAMES IN ALL CAPS)

Sept. 1 FURMAN, 12:20 pm (ACC Network)

Sept. 8 at Texas A&M

Sept. 15 GEORGIA SOUTHERN, 3:30 pm (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU)

Sept. 22 at Georgia Tech

Sept. 29 SYRACUSE

Oct. 6 at Wake Forest

Oct. 20 NC STATE

Oct. 27 at Florida State

Nov. 3 LOUISVILLE

Nov. 10 at Boston College

Nov. 17 DUKE

Nov. 24 SOUTH CAROLINA

This story was originally published May 18, 2018 at 10:07 AM with the headline "Kickoff times set for Clemson football's first home games of 2018."