Kickoff time, TV channel set for South Carolina-Clemson showdown in Death Valley
The kickoff time and TV channel are set for the 121st all-time meeting between longtime football rivals Clemson and South Carolina.
The Tigers and Gamecocks will kick off at noon from Clemson’s Memorial Stadium next Saturday, Nov. 30, the ACC and SEC announced Monday afternoon.
ESPN will broadcast the game.
It’s the second straight rivalry game in Clemson to get a noon game designation. Clemson also hosted USC at noon in 2022. While late kicks in Columbia are a common occurrence, the Tigers last hosted the Gamecocks in a night game in 2018.
Clemson and USC both won their final conference games over the weekend and will be ranked in Tuesday’s updated College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings, likely setting up the first CFP-ranked matchup between the rivals since 2017.
Clemson won the last meeting, 16-7, in Columbia in 2023 to knock South Carolina out of bowl eligibility, and USC upset Clemson in the last meeting in Death Valley in 2022.
Setting the state for next Saturday’s game: The No. 20 Tigers won at Pitt to move to 8-2 and 7-1 in the ACC, while the No. 21 Gamecocks (7-3, 5-3 SEC) used a late touchdown to beat No. 23 Missouri at home in Williams-Brice Stadium.
Both teams clinched bowl eligibility weeks ago and have manageable home games against in-state FCS schools this weekend as a pre-Palmetto Bowl tune-up.
Coach Dabo Swinney and Clemson host The Citadel (3:30 p.m., The CW) and coach Shane Beamer and USC host Wofford (4 p.m., SECN+).
It’s the designated senior day for both programs, and assuming they beat those lesser opponents they’ll enter their rivalry game at 9-2 and 8-3 overall, respectively.
It would be the first time since 2017 the Tigers and Gamecocks both entered a Palmetto Bowl with at least eight wins apiece.
Clemson-USC rivalry by the numbers
Clemson leads the overall series with South Carolina, 73-43-4.
Swinney, Clemson’s longtime coach, is 9-6 all-time against South Carolina and his Tigers have won eight of the last nine meetings. USC’s Beamer is 1-2 against Clemson but 1-0 against the Tigers in Memorial Stadium.
The Clemson-South Carolina rivalry was the second-longest running series in the country between college football programs before it was interrupted in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic when the SEC opted to play a conference-only schedule.
Despite that interruption at 111 consecutive games (1909-2019), the Palmetto Bowl series is still among the nation’s longest and was tied for the 11th most-played rivalry game in the FBS (120 games) entering last year’s game.
The 2024 Palmetto Bowl will be played during the last week of the college football regular season and two days after Thanksgiving. That’s been the traditional spot for the Clemson-USC game in most meetings since the turn of the century.
This story was originally published November 18, 2024 at 1:00 PM.
