CLEMSON — Few traditions in college football are more recognizable than Clemson’s entrance into Memorial Stadium.

Players and coaches load the buses after one last meeting in the west end zone locker room, ride around the north side of the stadium to the east side and unload the buses as they wait for the familiar tune of Tiger Rag to ring out from Tiger Band. They rub Howard’s Rock for good luck and charge down the hill and into Death Valley.

Running down the hill is synonymous with Clemson Football and has even become known as the “Most Exciting 25 Seconds in College Football,” a phrase coined by Hall of Fame sports broadcaster Brent Musburger in 1985. 

“If you are lucky enough to ever witness this, you will not forget it. It is perhaps the greatest entrance in sports,” ESPN’s Chris Fowler once said of the tradition.

Ahead of the 2026 season, however, newly-minted strength and conditioning coach Dennis Love, also known as D-Love by friends, players and coaches, is adding a different wrinkle to the tradition. This offseason, Clemson players are focused on running up a hill, to be prepared for what comes after they run down Clemson’s famous hill in a few months.

“The emphasis is on the structure and the accountability and just harping on guys and not letting anything slide this year,” senior defensive end Will Heldt said of Love’s coaching philosophy.

One pillar of this accountability, players say, are the runs up the dikes, the lakefront hills adjacent to Clemson’s athletic facilities. Early each Friday morning this summer, Tiger players have gathered at the base of the central dike, which towers about 50 feet above the lake beside it.

Dressed in purple practice shirts, the team lines up by position group, takes its mark, and waits for Love’s whistle. On the signal, each heat sprints directly up the hill, racing against time standards tailored to each position, before cheering on the next herd.

Offensive linemen, running backs, and wide receivers alike are all expected to complete the hill sprints, which usually takes around 20 seconds.

As the players push through the uphill climb, stomping on tall grass, Love can be heard shouting “Let’s go!,” and “Push, Push, Push!”. His voice even wafts to the Esso Club restaurant down the street for nearby Clemson fans to catch bits and pieces of what is going on.

Each week, Clemson players run one more hill sprint than the week before, and they will continue to increase their workload until fall camp begins later this summer. 

For a team that is composed of a program-record 12 transfers, along with several freshmen, the “Dike Runs” have become a powerful symbol of togetherness for the new-look Clemson team, which also features a new offensive coordinator and several new position coaches.

“I feel like a lot of the new guys have done a great job of wanting to buy into the chemistry,” quarterback Christopher Vizzina said. “One of the things that has helped is running the dikes, which they haven’t done in a while, and so we’re back to doing that and we’re struggling together, doing those and workouts this summer.”

With spring practice complete and with over a month remaining before fall camp begins, most of the team’s allocated eight hours of weekly instruction time–as well as its bonding–is currently spent with the new strength coach, whether in the weight room or on the hill.

Love, the architect of the workouts, was officially named Clemson’s Director of Football Strength and Conditioning coach last November after Swinney announced that the longtime strength coach Joey Batson would retire in January. 

The hire did not come as a shock, as Love has worked at Clemson for 14 combined years, the majority of his adult life.

His first stint came in 2004-14, where he oversaw 14 sports during his last four years as the Director of Olympic sports strength and conditioning. In his first season as the baseball head strength coach in 2010, the Tigers advanced to the College World Series and finished third in national polls.

The Cheraw, S.C., native completed coaching stints at Auburn, Purdue, and for the Denver Broncos before returning to Clemson with the Associate Football Strength position in 2022. Ahead of Batson’s retirement, he turned down NFL opportunities to stay with the Tigers, according to Swinney.

“It is really unprecedented,” Swinney said in November. “There are only 32 of those jobs, and for him to stay here… It is really a dream job for him. Been around multiple places, the NFL, different schools, and he is one of the most respected guys out there. That is why he had the opportunity to go be one of 32 NFL guys.”

Along with the dike runs, Love also implemented late-night “squat parties” this spring, hosting lifts in the dark at Clemson’s facility as a form of team bonding on Friday nights.

“What else would you rather be doing, right?” Heldt said. “Hanging out with the guys, throwing a little weight around, that was a blast. We had the orange and purple neon lights, got the music blasting in there. But yeah, it was fun.”

The Tigers still have several more weeks of dike runs and weight-room work before preseason practice gets started. But when they go to put on pads and tackle for the first time ahead of the season-opener against LSU on Sept. 5, they will have a new level of connection.

And running down the hill will probably feel much easier this year.