Clemson Tigers Head Coach on Facing West Coast ACC Opponent: 'Newness of CFB'

The Clemson Tigers will face a team from the West Coast in an 'Atlantic Coast Conference' matchup.

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It was always going to be strange in the Atlantic Coast Conference for teams like the Clemson Tigers when California and Stanford were added following the dissolving of the Pac-12.

Now that a matchup for Clemson is finally here against Stanford that will count in the conference standings, the wackiness of it all is not lost on Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney.

During Swinney's game week press conference, he brought up his close relationship to former Cardinal head coach David Shaw, who left the program two years ago after back-to-back 3-9 seasons, and the fact that the two close friends talked about their programs meeting hypothetically down the line, but now it's reality.

"I’ve got to reach out to him this week," Swinney said of Shaw, now a senior personnel executive with the Denver Broncos. "Back in the day, we used to talk about that all the time [and say] maybe one day we’ll meet up somewhere down the road…But here we are. That’s the newness of this era of college football,” Swinney continued.

“There’s gonna be a lot of matchups that everybody loved traditionally that you may not see as often, but there will be some new matchups like this that you’ll say, ‘OK, that’s going to be interesting.’ So this is a true East Coast-West Coast matchup.”

Clemson and Stanford have faced off just one time in the entire history of the two storied programs and never in the regular season. The Tigers met the Cardinal in the Gator Bowl in 1986 in Jacksonville, a game in which Clemson was victorious by a score of 27-21.

This weekend will be the first conference matchup of potentially many between the two schools.

Swinney is certainly correct in saying that this will new format of college football will take some getting used to. While re-alignment seems like something that is still far from over, two teams from the Pacific Coast find their way into the ACC for the time being and with Stanford looking for a fresh start coming off yet another disappointing 2023, the Tigers must be on top of things as they host the ACC's newest program.

It all gets started this weekend on Saturday evening at Memorial Stadium at 7:00 p.m. EST.