Clemson Tigers Destination Revealed for Bowl Game

The Clemson Tigers have a chance to salvage their season with a bowl win up in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium

Clemson will head to the Bronx for bowl season | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The Clemson Tigers have received their bowl bid for the 2025 season. Per the Pinstripe Bowl's official Instagram page, they have accepted their bid to play Penn State at Yankee Stadium. Kickoff is set for Dec. 27 at noon.

This will mark the first time that Clemson will play in this bowl game. It will be Penn State's second time, with the first coming back in 2014 against Boston College.

Though the game will be Clemson’s first Pinstripe Bowl appearance, it will not represent the Tigers’ New York City debut. In 1952, Clemson’s Don King ran for a freshman-record 234 rushing yards as the Tigers tied Fordham, 12-12, at Triborough Stadium on Randall’s Island.

In a way, this bowl game represents an attempt to salvage what was ultimately a disappointing season.

"I'm really excited about heading to the Big Apple," Head Coach Dabo Swinney said. "We have a lot of Clemson alumni in the area that will be pumped to see the Tigers. For our football team, it's a great opportunity to have a great finish. Obviously, we had a tough start, but we have the opportunity to win five in a row and take great momentum into the new year.

The Pinstripe Bowl berth extends Clemson’s school-record bowl streak to 21 years, the longest streak in the ACC and the fourth-longest streak in the country. Clemson's 21-year streak dates to its Champs Sports Bowl win against Colorado to close the 2005 season. Though Clemson opted against a bowl appearance in 2004, Clemson has now been bowl eligible in 27 consecutive seasons, dating to a 1999 appearance in the Peach Bowl.

The contest will represent the second all-time meeting between two of the nation’s premier programs in Clemson and Penn State. The Tigers and Nittany Lions first squared off on New Year’s Day in 1988 when Danny Ford’s squad concluded a 10-2 campaign by handing Joe Paterno and Penn State its largest margin of defeat in a bowl game in school history in a 35-10 Clemson victory in the 1988 Citrus Bowl.

Expectations were high for the Tigers heading into the 2025 season. They were coming off winning the ACC and reaching the College Football Playoff in the first year of the 12-team bracket. The AP Poll ranked them No. 4 to start the season.

However, they stumbled out of the gate, losing to LSU in the season opener. By week five, they found themselves unranked with a 1-3 record. Their lone loss in the early going was against Troy. After losing to Duke on Nov. 1, they were 3-5 with bowl hopes in jeopardy.

Clemson ended up winning out, taking four straight games. These wins included a ranked win over Louisville on the road and a win over rival South Carolina in Columbia, SC. It's not the season they had hoped for, but there is at least something to fight for.

The Pinstripe Bowl is a bowl game that has been held at the new Yankee Stadium since its inception. Its first game was played in 2010, a year after the stadium opened. It marked the first time since the 1960s that a bowl game would be played in New York City, when the Gotham Bowl was held for two seasons.