CLEMSON — If Clemson goes to Columbia and beats rival South Carolina on Saturday, there will be no planting of a flag on the Gamecocks’ logo at middle field.
Dabo Swinney made that very clear during Sunday’s conference call.
“I hope we get the opportunity to be better,” Clemson’s head coach said. “We talked about that last year. That is definitely something that does not need to happen.”
In each of the last three seasons, the visiting team won the game and in each instance the winner had someone take their flag from the cheerleading squad and planted it on the home logo at midfield.
Last year, Swinney said he was lucky to get out alive during South Carolina’s postgame celebration.
With thousands of Clemson and South Carolina fans on the field, players from both teams nearly got into an altercation as Carolina players attempted to plant a Gamecock flag in the middle of the Tiger Paw.
“It was dangerous. It was scary,” Swinney said the day after last year’s game. “We got to make sure that does not happen anymore. And we can’t be hypocrites either.”
The Clemson coach admitted he was not aware until after it happened that one of his players stuck a flag into the Gamecocks’ logo in Columbia following the Tigers’ win there in 2023. His player was retaliating after South Carolina players did the same thing following their win at Clemson in 2022.
Then following the Gamecocks’ win last year, things nearly got ugly.
“We do not need to disrespect the other team’s logo and all of that stuff,” Swinney said on Sunday. “We need to win with class and celebrate, certainly, and all of that stuff. We need to do all that we can to make sure that does not happen when you are in the opposing team’s stadium.”
Last year was not the first time things got heated between Clemson and Carolina on the football field. In 2004, both teams got into a brawl at Memorial Stadium, which took more than 20 minutes to clean up.
As punishment, both programs agreed not to participate in a bowl game, though they were both bowl eligible.
Clemson has been bowl eligible every year since 1999, but the 2004 season is the only year the program has not participated in a bowl in the last 27 years.
The Tigers became bowl eligible for a 27th consecutive year thanks to Saturday’s win over Furman.