Clemson in talks with 2 SEC powers for future football matchups

Clemson has never been shy about facing an additional SEC team other than South Carolina as part of its out of conference schedule. That trend will continue moving forward.

Tigers AD Dan Radakovich confirmed Friday that Clemson is in talks with Georgia and LSU about playing in the future.

“We’re still having those conversations with those two that you mentioned and others, as well. Football scheduling is like a cake that never bakes. It just kind of goes on and on and we’re trying to get our schedule taken care of through the decade of the 20s,” Radakovich said. “We’re close, but we’ll look forward to – we’ll get that news out as soon as it’s done. Believe me, there’s nothing more that I would like to, and Kyle Young who works in our office on football scheduling, than to get that out because football scheduling takes a lot of different twists and turns.”

Clemson has faced an SEC team in the regular season in addition to South Carolina seven of the past eight years. That streak will run to nine of 10 years as the Tigers will face Texas A&M in 2018 and 2019.

The only year Clemson did not play an additional SEC team since 2010 came in 2015 when the Tigers faced Notre Dame.

“You can look at our past history, that’s kind of what we do. We have our rival game with the University of South Carolina, but we also have looked to try to play another southeastern opponent each and every year.,” Radakvovich said. “Auburn for three years, Georgia, Texas A&M obviously the next two years. ACC’s a little different because we’re sprinkling in Notre Dame as an opponent as well. So we have to be mindful of that.”

Radakovich previously worked at LSU from 2001-2006, serving as the senior associate AD, and he said that he still has several connections over there, which helped start the process of Clemson and LSU discussing playing in the future.

“It’s just keeping in contact with people, trying to see if dates work. We see people at conferences or whatever,” Radakovich said. “You just always have to have that conversation not knowing if something had just happened on their campus that maybe changed something in their schedule. So it’s almost part of the standard.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2018 at 11:05 AM.