Clemson traditions rank in Top 5 entrances in college football

Dabo Swinney charges down The Hill after rubbing Howard's Rock (file photo).

Brandon Rink - Assoc. Editor / Staff Writer - Sunday, April 13 2025

It is list season, and a national outlet recently assembled one on the top stadium entrances and pregame rituals in college football.

247Sports ranked Clemson's Running Down The Hill and Howard's Rock No. 5 overall in the sport:

"The Clemson football team taking a lap around the outside of the stadium in buses builds anticipation for one of the sport's most iconic entrances. The Tigers are far from the only squad that touch an item, statue or sign on their way onto the field, but when they rub Howard's Rock — a quartzite chunk from Death Valley, Calif. gifted to coach Frank Howard in the 1960s — and run down the hill behind their east end zone, they exude the magic of college football. The cherry on top is the crowd's deafening C-L-E-M-S-O-N spellout."

247Sports' Carter Bahns then ranks a Top 4 entrance quartet starting with Virginia Tech's Enter Sandman, followed by Florida State's Osceola and Renegade, Auburn's War Eagle and Colorado's Ralphie the buffalo.

South Carolina's 2001 entrance song is behind Clemson's entrance at No. 6.