The Clemson football team got together with about 30,000 of their closest friends on Sunday afternoon at Death Valley to celebrate a 13-0 season with pizza, music and a show.
Of course the show was the College Football Playoff Selection Show, which the Tigers and the fans watched on the video board to find out where they will spend the holiday season. To no one’s surprise Clemson, the ACC Champions, remained the top team in college football, grabbing the No. 1 overall seed in the national semifinals, while also learning it will face a familiar foe in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Eve.
The Tigers will play No. 4 seed Oklahoma, the Big 12 Champion. Clemson defeated the Sooners 40-6 in the 2014 Russell Athletic Bowl, one of the worst defeats for Oklahoma in the program’s proud history.
“It makes for a tremendous matchup down there in the Orange Bowl,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “It is something I know both teams will be excited about and we look forward to being down there and being a part of it.”
The game which will be televised by ABC will kickoff at 4 p.m. on New Year’s Eve with the winner advancing to the National Championship Game on Jan. 11. They will play the winner between No. 2 seed Alabama and No. 3 seed Michigan State.
Clemson players admitted it would have been nice to have the opportunity to play someone different in the College Football Playoff game like Alabama or Michigan State, but in the end they were all just thankful to being playing for an opportunity to play for a national championship.
“That would have been cool, but when it all comes down to it, it doesn’t matter. It’s just one team in front of us getting in the way of where we want to be,” running back Wayne Gallman said.
Gallman said it was surreal to see Clemson’s name at the top of the final rankings, and do understand what it all means.
“Pretty much every team in the country wishes they were where we are right now,” he said. “And that is all God.”
Gallman never watched the selection during the regular season, but he admitted it felt good when he saw Clemson’s name pop up at No. 1 on the video board and the 30,000 fans inside Memorial Stadium all started to scream and roar.
“It feels really good to know hard work really does pay off,” he said. “We just have to stick to what we have been doing.”
Left guard Eric Mac Lain said he fully expected to see the Tigers ranked No. 1 after Saturday’s 45-37 victory over North Carolina, which clinched the Tigers first ACC Championship in four years.
“I happy to be able to say that we are No. 1 in the country and that is the way we will be rolling into the College Football Playoff,” he said.
Mac Lain said the expectations for this season have high all season, and he said the goal was to go poll to poll and not worry about all the distractions and noise that comes along with being the No. 1 ranked team in the country.
“Our goal was to go poll to poll and we are really excited that we finally did that,” he said. “We are really excited that we are playing Oklahoma.”