During his radio show Monday night, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was asked a text-in question about his team being a big underdog entering Saturday\u2019s game at LSU.<\/p>\n
The texter asked Swinney since \u201creally nobody believes that this team can go to LSU and win, how do you go about establishing that winning attitude going there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we\u2019re a bunch of nobodies, so I mean, I guess that nobody\u2019s our cousin,\u201d Swinney replied.<\/p>\n
The outside noise and oddsmakers heavily favor No. 11 LSU, with Clemson a 10.5-point underdog heading into the season opener.<\/p>\n
ESPN\u2019s analytics give LSU roughly a 75% chance to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut listen, this is football. That\u2019s why you play the games,\u201d Swinney added. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to really say much to these guys. They don\u2019t live in a cave. They know that nobody\u2019s going to pick them, nobody\u2019s going to give us a chance or any of that type of stuff. But that\u2019s why you play the games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s game at LSU\u2019s Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, La., is slated for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on ABC. It will mark the highly anticipated LSU head coaching debut for Lane Kiffin, whose team will host Swinney\u2019s squad in a very hostile night-game environment.<\/p>\n
ESPN\u2019s College GameDay pregame show will be on site for the matchup. It will be Clemson\u2019s first time opening a season in an SEC venue since 2016, when the Tigers began their eventual national championship campaign with a 19-13 win at Auburn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tough challenge, for sure,\u201d Swinney said of opening the 2026 season at LSU. \u201cThis is a really good football team. Really, really talented, and we\u2019ll have our hands full, especially in that environment, in an opener. You just have very, very little room for error, so you\u2019ve got to play really crisp right out of the gate. But our team believes, so it\u2019s really not about what other people believe. It\u2019s about what our team believes. Our team certainly believes. There ain\u2019t no doubt about it, and we\u2019ll be excited to go play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Clemson and LSU finished 7-6 in 2025, though national expectations for Clemson are much lower entering 2026, as it is unranked in the preseason AP Top 25 Poll for the first time since 2011.<\/p>\n
LSU leads the all-time series against Clemson 4-1, with Clemson\u2019s lone win being a dramatic 25-24 victory in the 2012 Peach Bowl. LSU beat Clemson, 17-10, in last year\u2019s season opener at Clemson\u2019s Memorial Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During his radio show Monday night, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was asked a text-in question about his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":989063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5320,7,5324,5322,49,48,5321,5323,5325],"class_list":["post-989062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-clemson-insider-podcast","tag-football","tag-gymnastics","tag-hero","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-noonan","tag-track-and-field","tag-wednesday"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117195901735777530","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/989063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}