{"id":638986,"date":"2026-05-12T18:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/638986\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T18:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:01:08","slug":"espn-college-gameday-planning-clemson-vs-lsu-as-destination-for-week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/638986\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN College GameDay planning Clemson vs. LSU as destination for Week 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN College GameDay<\/a>\u2018s 2026 slate will open with a bang. The show is heading to the Week 1 matchup between Clemson<\/a> and LSU<\/a>, On3\u2019s Pete Nakos reports. The game will mark Lane Kiffin<\/a>\u2018s first as LSU\u2018s head coach inside Tiger Stadium.<\/p>\n

With Kiffin facing off against his former program, Ole Miss<\/a>, in Week 3, LSU will more than likely be featured in two of GameDay\u2019s first three shows of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

In a battle of preseason top-10 ranked teams, Clemson and LSU faced off inside Memorial Stadium to kick off the 2025 season. While at the time this seemed to be an uber important game for the College Football Playoff race, that did not come to fruition.<\/p>\n

Although LSU came away with the 17-10 win over the No. 4 ranked team in the country, it finished with a 7-6 (3-5) record and parted ways with head coach Brian Kelly<\/a> mid-season. Clemson, which opened the season with an 0-1 record, finished 7-6 (4-4) and failed to hit the eight-win mark under head coach Dabo Swinney<\/a> for the first time since 2010.<\/p>\n

Dabo Swinney defended Lane Kiffin\u2019s departure for LSU opening<\/p>\n

2026 seems poised to be a bounce back season for Clemson and LSU, both of which are seeking a return to national relevance. LSU has not made an appearance in the College Football Playoff since 2019, when Joe Burrow<\/a> and Ja\u2019Marr Chase<\/a> led the Tigers to a National Championship. Clemson has not appeared in the College Football Playoff since 2020, where it was blown out by Ohio State<\/a> 49-28 in the Sugar Bowl.<\/p>\n

Kiffin shocked the college football world ahead of last season\u2019s College Football Playoff, when he departed from Ole Miss for the LSU job. While many slandered Kiffin for jumping ship just before the Rebels\u2019 first Playoff run in program history, Clemson\u2018s Dabo Swinney actually defended the move when discussing how the CFB calendar is set up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s three main big, primary problems (in college football), and there\u2019s one primary cause. \u2026 It\u2019s because our current calendar is stupid,\u201d Swinney said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how else to say it. It\u2019s just stupid. \u2026 What planet am I living on? This is not what college football is all about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayers are leaving early because they\u2019re trying to get ahead of this calendar, because the calendar is forcing them to do this. They\u2019re being forced to make these early decisions,\u201d Swinney continued. \u201cCoaches like (new\u00a0LSU<\/a>\u00a0head coach)\u00a0Lane Kiffin<\/a>\u00a0are leaving teams amid Playoff runs. And listen, right or wrong, whether you agree with it or don\u2019t agree with it personally, \u2026 professionally I understand. He\u2019s trying to get ahead of the calendar so he can be successful at the next job. He didn\u2019t create the calendar. \u2026 So let\u2019s fix the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kick-off for the Week 1 meeting between LSU and Clemson in Baton Rouge has still yet to be revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN College GameDay\u2018s 2026 slate will open with a bang. The show is heading to the Week 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-638986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}