Kickoff time set for 2025 Clemson vs. South Carolina football rivalry game
Clemson and South Carolina’s annual football rivalry game has a kick time.
The Tigers and Gamecocks will kick off at noon for their Nov. 29, 2025, rivalry game at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, the schools announced Wednesday.
The game will be broadcast on either ABC or ESPN. As usual, it’s happening during the last week of the regular season on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
The Palmetto Bowl kickoff time news came as part of a larger SEC announcement on kickoff windows for each conference team’s SEC games and other home games.
This is the third time in four years that Clemson-USC has gotten a noon kickoff (also 2022 at Clemson and 2024 at Clemson).
USC won last year’s ranked matchup, 17-14, in Memorial Stadium behind an all-time performance from QB LaNorris Sellers. It was the Gamecocks’ second time in a row beating Clemson on the road. The Tigers won the last meeting in Columbia in 2023.
The 2025 meeting between coach Dabo Swinney and Shane Beamer’s team is already drawing hype. Clemson and South Carolina combined to win 19 games last year, and both teams return their starting quarterbacks (Cade Klubnik and Sellers).
The ACC’s Tigers and the SEC’s Gamecocks also were ranked No. 2 and No. 13, respectively, in ESPN’s post-spring Way Too Early Top 25 released in May.
Clemson leads the all-time series 73-45-4, though South Carolina has won two of the last three. The 2025 meeting will be the rivals’ 121st all-time game vs. each other.
Why was the kickoff time announced so early?
Some fans weren’t expecting to see a Palmetto Bowl kickoff time released on June 11, more than five months before the rivalry game takes place in Columbia.
Last year’s game, which was held at Clemson, did not receive its formal kickoff time and TV designation (noon on ESPN) until 12 days beforehand.
The 2025 kickoff time was announced earlier as part of the SEC’s new TV deal with ESPN that started last year. As part of that deal, the SEC releases kickoff time “windows” for conference games and non-conference home games well in advance.
The league has framed the kickoff window system as a fan-friendly measure that helps people get an early head start on weekend and hotel planning for games.
Since Clemson-South Carolina is being played in Columbia this year and is technically an “SEC-controlled” game as a result, it received a kickoff time.
Florida State’s rivalry game at Florida also got a kickoff time (flex, meaning it’ll be an afternoon or night kick) as part of Wednesday’s announcement. But Florida’s September game at Miami did not, since that’s technically an ACC-controlled game.
This story was originally published June 11, 2025 at 2:35 PM.
