By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

As you look at Clemson’s 2013 football schedule, there is reason for optimism, but there are plenty of questions, too.

Let’s start from the beginning. First of all, before you even start to look at the schedule, you have to at least mention the personnel the Tigers return from last year’s 11-2 team that finished ranked No. 9 in the final USA Today Coaches Poll.

Clemson returns six starters on offense and eight on defense, including 2012 ACC Player of the Year Tajh Boyd, four starters on the offensive line and hopefully, a healthy Sammy Watkins. There are still question marks, however, like replacing All-American Dalton Freeman at center and All-American DeAndre Hopkins at wide receiver.

Then there is running back, where for the first time since 2005, there will not be a guy named James Davis, C.J. Spiller, Jamie Harper or Andre Ellington carrying the football. That’s a pretty good stable of running backs that amassed 12,175 yards over the last eight seasons.

The secondary, though not great in 2012, must also replace three starters, though Travis Blanks, perhaps the best in the group, is back and will be the new starter at free safety. The defensive line returns three starters, as well as a couple of young defensive tackles in D.J. Reader and Carlos Watkins that got better as the season went along.

Special teams returns Chandler Catanzaro as the placekicker, while freshman Bradley Pinion will take over full-time as punter and kickoff specialist after sharing those roles with Spencer Benton last year.

The schedule may not appear too daunting when you first look at it, but as you start to analyze it more it definitely has some pitfalls.

The non-conference schedule has two built-in victories—S.C. State and The Citadel—and two that can be classified as toss ups. Clemson opens the season at home against Georgia, which should feature a battle of top 10 teams in the preseason.

This should mark the first time since 1987 that both teams were ranked coming into the game. That year, Clemson was ranked No. 8 and the Bulldogs were No. 18. Clemson won that game 21-20 on a David Treadwell 21-yard field goal with two seconds left.

It will be great to see Clemson and Georgia going at on the gridiron once again when both programs are playing at their best. From 1977-’87 both were top 15 teams most years, and the 11 games drew an even 5-5-1 record with the average margin of victory being just 4.7 points. Nine of the 11 games were decided by a touchdown or less.

As always, Clemson will close the season against archrival South Carolina. The Gamecocks have knocked off Clemson four straight years and this year they get them in Columbia where they have beaten the Tigers by an average score of 34-15 the last two times there.

The ACC schedule isn’t all that hard, especially considering the way Clemson beat up on all but Florida State last year. The good news, the Tigers travel to NC State early in the season (Sept. 19) when it is still breaking in a new head coach, a new quarterback and a new offense.

The bad news, it’s on a Thursday night.  And they burn one of their open dates after the second week of the season because they have to play a Thursday night game. The Tigers play seven straight ACC games, while opponents in that stretch—Syracuse and Florida State—have bye weeks before playing Clemson.

NC State is one of two Thursday night games the Tigers will play this season. The last time that happened was in 2006 – against Temple in Charlotte, NC and at Virginia Tech. Clemson generally does not play well on Thursday nights and having to play in Raleigh, NC on one will be a challenge.

After NC State, Clemson host Wake Forest and then travels to Syracuse and plays an Orange team that will be coming off a bye week. Though that doesn’t seem like a big deal, it is. Look at it this way, Syracuse gets an entire two weeks—which gives them an extra day or two essentially—to prepare for Clemson, not 10 days like Clemson gets in its two open dates, which both fall before Thursday night games.

Depending on the coach, two weeks in between games gives a school eight practices to prepare for the next game instead of four. When teams play on Thursday nights, they get six days to prepare.

As a side note, I hate it when I hear coaches and administrators say playing on a Thursday night brings the program great exposure because more people are watching. That’s baloney. With the NFL now playing Thursday night games, playing on a Thursday night has lost its luster in college football.

Most people in the country will watch an NFL game over a college game. So how does it help?

After getting back from Upstate New York, Clemson host Boston College and then welcomes a completely rested and possibly healthy Florida State team into Death Valley. This game will once again decide the ACC Atlantic Division Champion, but one has to hope Clemson is able to come in at full strength considering this will be its fifth straight ACC game.

Clemson will journey to Maryland one last time after the FSU game to play a Terps team that should be much improved this season and should be a whole lot healthier after being decimated by injuries in 2012. This will be the first of three straight weeks in which the Tigers do not play in Death Valley.

A trip to Charlottesville, VA welcomes the Tigers on Nov. 2. It will be the first time Clemson and Virginia have met since 2009 – Spiller’s last game in Death Valley.

Then comes what should be a much needed open date on Nov. 9, but Clemson will not be able to rest too much because it will use its two extra days of practice to prepare for Tech’s triple-option offense, which can be an advantage.

However, what Clemson loses by playing on a Thursday night in Death Valley is a little bit of its home field advantage. It’s hard for Clemson to sellout an ACC game that doesn’t involve Florida State. They draw pretty good crowds when Georgia Tech comes to down, but that’s on a Saturday.

How many people from the Charleston and Myrtle Beach areas will actually make the trip to the Western part of the state for this game on a Thursday night? I’ll tell you, not many.

It is difficult enough trying to get to Clemson for a game on a Saturday when you have the entire weekend to go up and back. I talk from experience. I used to do it a lot in my younger days. Since most people have to work on Thursday and will have to be back at work on Friday, it will hurt attendance.

Remember last year when the Clemson defense fed off the crowd in the fourth quarter against Tech. Clemson had 81,000 fans at that game. It will be lucky to get 70,000 at the game this year. That little bit can make a difference.

In the end, I think Clemson has a chance to run the table, but it’s not likely. A see either Georgia or South Carolina as a possible loss in out of conference play, and an upset can come at either Syracuse or Virginia inside the ACC.

I can also see Florida State, being that it has the extra week of preparation, coming in and knocking off the Tigers in Death Valley.

I still think Clemson is the favorite to win the ACC, but in my opinion, this schedule will make it a little more challenging than I once believed it would be. My early predication, no worse than 9-3 or 10-2 at best. I guess we will see.