Clemson football bowl projections come into focus ahead of ACC championship game

A scroll through Clemson football’s bowl projections confirms the obvious: Saturday’s home loss to rival South Carolina has essentially eliminated the Tigers from the College Football Playoff.

Now, according to updated predictions, Clemson is down to two postseason paths entering next Saturday’s ACC championship game against North Carolina:

Win, and play in the Orange Bowl.

Lose, and play in a second-tier ACC bowl. Again.

Clemson (10-2, 8-0 ACC) entered its regular-season finale with an unlikely yet possible path to the four-team CFP that involved winning out and getting some help from other teams come conference championship weekend.

But coach Shane Beamer’s Gamecocks ended an opponent’s championship dreams for the second straight week, knocking off Clemson 31-30 behind 360 yards and two touchdowns from quarterback Spencer Rattler and a superb second-half defensive effort.

The loss snapped Clemson’s seven-game winning streak against South Carolina and 40-game home winning streak at Memorial Stadium and gave the Tigers a 1.8% chance to make the College Football Playoff, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index.

Entering conference championship weekend, Georgia (99.6%), Michigan (97.3%), Ohio State (88.2%) and TCU (83.5%) are the CFP favorites with Alabama (13.9%) and Southern Cal (12.6%) lingering and Tennessee (2.3%) and Clemson at a distant No. 7 and No. 8.

Even in a statistically perfect scenario for the Tigers — in which Clemson beats UNC, Georgia beats LSU and TCU, Michigan and Southern Cal all lose their conference title games — their chances of making the CFP field jump from 9% to just 19%, according to FiveThirtyEight.com.

As such, bowl game prognosticators see an obvious ceiling for an 11-2 ACC champion Clemson team: the Orange Bowl, which annually hosts the ACC champion — or the top-ranked available ACC team if the champion advances to the College Football Playoff — in the greater Miami area.

After Week 12, that’s where 247Sports, Action Network, Athlon Sports, CBS Sports, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News and USA TODAY all have the Tigers.

Those eight media outlets, all of whom are essentially predicting a Clemson win with their projections, only differ on potential opponents. Six have Clemson playing Tennessee, which saw its own CFP hopes fizzle out with a Week 11 loss at South Carolina, and two have Clemson playing Alabama, which is in serious danger of missing the CFP for the second time since 2014.

Clemson is 6-11-2 all-time against Tennessee, with their last meeting coming in the 2004 Peach Bowl, and 5-14 all-time against Alabama, with their last four meetings coming in CFP play. Clemson is 2-2 in those games and 2-1 against Alabama in national championship games.

If UNC beats Clemson next Saturday, the Tar Heels would take the ACC’s Orange Bowl slot and the Tigers would miss out on a New Year’s Six Bowl for the second consecutive season after making six in a row — all CFP semifinals — from 2015 to 2020.

Come Selection Sunday, the ACC’s top four teams in the final CFP Top 25 rankings will likely be Clemson, UNC, Florida State and N.C. State in some order. Bowl projections for the latter three teams offer some hints at where a 11-3 Clemson team could end up instead.

Another Cheez-It Bowl?

Most Monday projections have UNC, Florida State and N.C. State making some combination of the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando and the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte. Those are three of the second-tier bowls with ACC tie-ins behind the Orange Bowl.

The ACC also has a tie-in for the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, but Notre Dame can take that spot (or any other ACC spot) if it’s within one game of the ACC team eligible for the bowl. The Fighting Irish finished their regular season 8-4 and are in a good position to take the ACC’s Gator Bowl spot in 2022, per projections. (Notre Dame may end up playing South Carolina).

Last year, here’s how the upper echelon of ACC bowl assignments went: No. 12 Pittsburgh to the Peach Bowl (lost to Michigan State), No. 17 Wake Forest to the Gator Bowl (beat Rutgers), No. 18 N.C. State to the Holiday Bowl (canceled vs. UCLA) and No. 19 Clemson to the Cheez-It Bowl (beat Iowa State). As a CFP semifinalist host last year, the Orange Bowl was a moot point.

Clemson has a long history in the Orange Bowl. The Tigers have played in the bowl six times and won the 1981 national championship against Nebraska in the venue.

They’ve also played there three times this century, beating Ohio State in 2013 and Oklahoma in a 2015 College Football Playoff semifinal while losing to West Virginia, 70-33, in 2011.

The 2022 Orange Bowl will be played on Friday, Dec. 30, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla. Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. on ESPN.

Clemson Week 12 bowl projections

247Sports: Orange Bowl vs Tennessee

Action Network: Orange Bowl vs Tennessee

Athlon Sports: Orange Bowl vs. Tennessee

CBS Sports: Orange Bowl vs. Tennessee

ESPN: Orange Bowl vs. Tennessee

Sports Illustrated: Orange Bowl vs Tennessee

The Sporting News: Orange Bowl vs Alabama

USA TODAY: Orange Bowl vs Alabama