ESPN college football analyst Greg McElroy has made his prediction for the outcome of Saturday’s game between Clemson and No. 11 LSU at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.
The LSU Tigers are a heavy favorite at home, and McElroy predicts that LSU, in Lane Kiffin’s head coaching debut for the program, will defeat Dabo Swinney’s Clemson Tigers.
However, McElroy believes Clemson will make the contest closer than the 10.5-point spread indicates. He’s going with a final score of 27-20 in favor of the Bayou Bengals.
“[Swinney] does not get run out of the building, not by anybody. So take LSU, and you can have the 10.5 points,” McElroy said on his Always College Football podcast. “I think they win it, I just don’t know if I feel comfortable with them running the Clemson Tigers out of the building. Because if you look at how [LSU has] fared, they’ve been great at home. 27 straight home wins against unranked opponents. They’re 91-12 at home, at night, since 2006. And a first-time starter [Clemson quarterback Christopher Vizzina], in a big game like this, walking into Tiger Stadium, at night, against a defense that’s built to slam the door, is going to be tough sledding for sure.
“So Clemson’s a real answer, and it depends a little bit on how quickly they get the ball out, and Sammy Brown on defense doing an amazing job. But I do think Kiffin gets his night. It’s an expensive roster with a lot of talent in what should be an incredible environment. LSU gets it done, but it’s by closer than the experts think.”
Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show, McElroy called Clemson a “very dangerous” opponent for LSU.
McElroy pointed out that all the pressure is on LSU because of the high national expectations centered around Kiffin’s arrival and his heavy roster rebuilding, while unranked Clemson is playing with “house money” and “zero expectations.”
It’s a major contrast to the massive expectations Swinney’s team carried into last year’s season opener against LSU as a preseason top-four team. Of course, LSU quickly derailed the Clemson hype train with a 17-10 victory at Clemson’s Death Valley, and Clemson went on to suffer through a highly disappointing 7-6 campaign.
But McElroy noted that the 2026 Clemson squad still has talented, NFL-caliber “dudes” on the roster, and it wouldn’t shock him if Clemson is still within striking distance in the third quarter.
“Last year, we think about Clemson, how we approached it in the regular season and in the preseason leading up to it,” McElroy said. “Top-four team in college football. Everybody’s back. Most returning production. They have a home game against LSU. You’re like, this is the one. This is the year, boys. It’s proof of concept. Dabo’s resisted the portal because he wanted to grow within. Well, then they go out and lay an egg, score 10 points, lose the game.
“But it was all the pressure was on them last year to make a run. This year, it’s like, dude, we haven’t talked about Clemson at all nationally. It’s been all about LSU, all about the roster building, all about Lane Kiffin. Meanwhile, Dabo’s self-proclaimed ‘bunch of nobodies’ at Clemson still have dudes. So I would not be that surprised if this is a game in the third quarter. At that point, all the pressure’s on LSU, right? Because they’re supposed to be the team.
“Meanwhile, Clemson has zero expectations, no pressure, and is playing with house money. So I think it’s a very dangerous game, if you’re LSU to go in and kind of overlooking a team that still has got guys on the other side, that’ll play on Sundays.”
ESPN’s College GameDay pregame show is traveling to Baton Rouge to host its 500th show for the marquee Week 1 game between Clemson and LSU, which is slated for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on ABC.