The noon kickoff for the Bulldogs isn't as bad as many think

The earlier kick will give Clemson an earlier head-start on the home opener prep for Appalachian State.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sat May 18 07:00:02 GMT-04:00 2024

Noon it is, and noon it shall be.

ESPN announced earlier this week that kickoff for Clemson’s season opener against the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday, Aug. 31, has been set for noon ET. The game will air nationally on ABC.

The contest at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta has been designated as the Aflac Kickoff Game. Clemson won its most recent contest in the venue, a 41-10 victory against Georgia Tech on Labor Day night to kick off the Tigers’ 2022 ACC Championship season.

The game represents the first of five scheduled meetings between the programs over the next ten years. The historic geographic rivals have also previously announced two home-and-home series featuring games in Clemson in 2029 and 2033 and games in Athens in 2030 and 2032.

But noon? Blame Notre Dame if you want to blame anybody. Many of us thought that the Tigers and Bulldogs would be a night game, or at the very least a 3:30 kick. Georgia is considered the best program in the country and the Tigers are considered a College Football Playoff contender this season, so there wasn’t anything wrong in thinking the game would be a later kick.

But the Fighting Irish start the season on the road at Texas A&M. Notre Dame plays most of its games on NBC, so ESPN wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to show the Fighting Irish in primetime. That 7:30 p.m. slot will stand as the SEC’s game of the day, and ESPN figures it will garner a huge television audience for the Irish.

And after spending time speaking with people in and around the Clemson program this week, it was made clear to me that the noon kickoff suits them just fine. Why? The Tigers will bus down to Atlanta at some point on Friday and be locked in a hotel until it is time to leave for the stadium. The noon kick means, at least from what I’ve gathered in the past, that everyone will be awake by 6 a.m. and beginning to prepare for the contest. They won’t have to sit around all day waiting for the game to start.

They can get up, eat breakfast, go over last-minute notes and game plans, and prepare to arrive at the stadium around 9:45 a.m.

But I was also reminded of another reason why the noon kick is helpful for the Tigers (and let’s face it, it seems like Clemson always plays a night game away from Death Valley). Clemson has to turn around and face Appalachian State the following Saturday. The Mountaineers aren’t a pushover – they took UNC to two overtimes last season – and they open up with ETSU in Kidd Brewer Stadium in Boone. ETSU won just three games a year ago.

If it had been a night game, the Clemson buses would have likely sat in traffic heading out of Atlanta, and their arrival back in Clemson would have been in the wee hours of the morning. With the noon kick, the hope is that Clemson will be back by 8 p.m. or so, and the coaches can get started on the Georgia game review and preparing for Appalachian St.

Obviously, the Tigers will work a bit on the Mountaineers in fall camp, but this will give the coaches actual game film to observe and break down. I was reminded that an 8-to-12 window of extra time would be extremely helpful. It's not necessary—the coaches are used to these quick turnarounds—but it will be helpful.