The best pregame show in sports has announced its location for the first week of the season. College Gameday will head to Clemson’s beautiful campus for the defending national champions’ season opener against Georgia Tech.
See you in Death Valley, @CollegeGameDay 😎 pic.twitter.com/EO4RMSuksl
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) August 8, 2019
Although there are much better games on the schedule for Week 1, this game was made with the fledgling ACC Network in mind. ESPN has partnered up with the conference to make a television network, and the first game broadcast on the ACC Network will feature Clemson hosting Georgia Tech.
Don’t expect this one to be much of a contest. The Tigers are 35-point favorites according to college football betting odds, and they should rout the Yellow Jackets. Georgia Tech is in a clear Year 0 situation with Geoff Collins taking over the program and he is starting from scratch. For over a decade, Georgia Tech was an option team under Paul Johnson, but they are transitioning to a pro-style offense. They don’t yet have a quarterback that is accurate enough to move the ball in this system, so points will be scarce for the visitors.
This will be just the sixth time that Clemson has hosted College Gameday. The last time Death Valley was the site of the preseason show was back in October 2016 when Lamar Jackson and the Louisville Cardinals came to town. That game was a thriller with Deshaun Watson throwing for five touchdowns and amassing nearly 400 total yards of offense, while Jackson accounted for over 450 total yards and nearly led the Cardinals to the upset. Jackson would go on to win the Heisman Trophy later that year.
With the College Gameday crew going to Clemson in Week 1, that means they won’t go back to Clemson for the Tigers’ Week 2 game against Texas A&M. This decision means that LSU-Texas in Austin is almost certain to be the site of College Gameday in Week 2.
