Clemson’s win at Florida State did more than get the Tigers back on track. It also nudged them one step closer to bowl eligibility, with Dabo Swinney’s team now sitting at 5-3 overall and 3-2 in the ACC. One more victory gets Clemson to the postseason, and the latest round of bowl projections shows just how much the picture can still move.
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach hasn’t budged since Clemson’s Week 8 loss to Virginia Tech. He still has the Tigers matched up with Oregon State in the Old El Paso Sun Bowl on Dec.
- That projection looked a little different after Saturday, though, because Clemson and Oregon State now share the same overall record.
The Tigers got the win, while the Beavers saw their five-game streak end in a 38-22 loss to Fresno State.
Oregon State still brings plenty of firepower. Quarterback Braden Atkinson has nearly 3,000 passing yards, and true freshman receiver Jesse Legree leads the nation with 1,110 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns through eight games.
Kyle Bonagura made one of the biggest changes. A week ago, he had Clemson headed to the inaugural TransPerfect San Juan Bowl against Georgia State, a team the Tigers will actually open against next season.
After Clemson’s latest win, Bonagura moved the Tigers to the Duke’s Mayo Bowl against Penn State. That game is set for Dec. 26 at 3:30 p.m. at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.
If that matchup holds, it would be Clemson’s first appearance in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl since 2010, when the event was still called the Meineke Car Care Bowl and the Tigers played USF. Penn State has never been in the game. The two programs met for the first time in last year’s Pinstripe Bowl, but this year’s Nittany Lions are a very different team.
Penn State fired James Franklin and brought in Iowa State’s Matt Campbell, then watched a wave of transfer movement reshape the roster in both directions. The offseason changes briefly made the Nittany Lions look like a Big Ten contender after they opened ranked No. 18, but the results haven’t followed. They’ve dropped four of their last five and are 4-4 overall, 1-4 in conference play.
CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford has also shifted his thinking. For the past two weeks, he had Clemson facing Washington in the Sun Bowl, but now he’s moved the Tigers to Puerto Rico for the San Juan Bowl. His opponent is Marshall rather than Oregon State, and it would be the first meeting between Clemson and Marshall.
Marshall is also 5-3, with a 2-2 mark in conference play, but the matchup doesn’t look especially appealing on paper. The Thundering Herd lost to Coastal Carolina, were beaten badly by James Madison, 45-17, and were shut out by Penn State, 45-0, in their lone game against a Power Four opponent. Even so, the record-based logic behind the projection is easy to follow.
Sports Illustrated’s Bryan Fischer has stayed with the same idea for two straight weeks: Clemson against No. 18 USC in the Will & Trust Holiday Bowl.
USC’s path makes sense, too, after its upset of No. 11 Ohio State pushed the Trojans to 7-2.
Even if they lose to No. 6 Indiana and No.
5 UCLA, they’d still be 8-4, which fits the range of a typical Holiday Bowl team. Clemson’s side is less settled.
The Tigers may need to win out, or at least finish unbeaten in ACC play, to stay in the mix.
On3’s Brett McMurphy has also changed course. Last week, he had Clemson in San Juan against Louisiana.
This time, he moved the Tigers to the Freedom Mortgage Military Bowl against UTSA. That would be the first meeting between the programs and the first trip to that bowl for either school.
UTSA’s resume makes that projection harder to picture. The Roadrunners are 7-1 overall and 4-0 in the American Athletic Conference, with their only loss coming against No.
1 Texas in Week 3. They could still run the table and reach the conference title game, and even a loss to North Texas would leave them at 10-2, which probably puts them above the Military Bowl range.
Still, the game has seen unusual selections before. In 2023, Tulane finished 11-1, lost the AAC Championship Game to SMU, 26-14, and then ended up in the Military Bowl against Virginia Tech, where the Green Wave fell again, 41-20, to finish 11-3.
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Syracuse has quietly built some momentum of its own, winning its last two games, and the Orange also have a key piece back in place with starting quarterback Steve Angeli returning from injury. For Clemson, that makes this more than just another November trip north, especially with the kind of setting and timing that can make conference games feel a lot tighter than the records might indicate. [Read more 🡒]