BATON ROUGE - Who knows where LSU and Clemson will be seven years from now and under what football coach?
But on this day in the year 2025, LSU will be 15 days away from playing at Death Valley - the one in Clemson, South Carolina, also known as Memorial Stadium - to open the season against Clemson, according to an announcement of a home-and-home, LSU-Clemson series made by Clemson on Wednesday.
Clemson will play in LSU's Death Valley - aka Tiger Stadium - on Sept. 25, 2026.
We are excited about playing a school with LSU's rich football tradition," said Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich, who was LSU's top assistant athletic director from 2001-06 under athletic director Skip Bertman and at times expected to become LSU's athletic director.
"We know our fans will enjoy visiting Baton Rouge, and we know they will provide our renowned Clemson hospitality to the fans from LSU," Radakovich said in a Clemson release. "The series against LSU continues the philosophy we have had at Clemson for many years of looking to add another Power 5 opponent to our schedule outside of our annual rivalry with South Carolina."
LSU leads the series with Clemson, 2-1, but the two have never met in the regular season. LSU capped off its last perfect season at 11-0 on Jan. 1, 1959, with a 7-0 win over Clemson in the Sugar Bowl at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. The Tigers captured the national championship that season before that game. The Tigers defeated Clemson, 10-7, on Dec. 28, 1996, in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia, before losing to Clemson, 25-24, on Dec. 31, 2012, in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
Clemson and Coach Dabo Swinney won the national championship in the 2016 season with a 35-31 win over Alabama and reached the Final Four of the College Football Playoff last season before a 24-6 loss to Alabama. LSU last won the national championship in the 2007 season with a win over Ohio State and reached the national championship game in the 2011 season before losing to Alabama.
LSU continues to upgrade its Tiger Stadium schedule dramatically as it also has home games against Texas in 2020, UCLA in 2024, Oklahoma in 2028 and Arizona State in 2029.
"We are working to grow that list," LSU athletic director Joe Alleva said in a later release by LSU. "We have put an emphasis on bringing Power 5 teams other than from the SEC to Tiger Stadium as often as we can."
