Furman Closes Out 2025 Season at Clemson Saturday
It will a different shade of orange that the Paladins will see when they close out the 2025 season than the one, they saw in 2024, which resulted in a 49-23 road loss to now back-to-back SoCon champion Mercer. This shade of orange packs a different punch at a higher level, which is worn by FBS power Clemson--a program which owns more tradition and plays at a higher level than last season's shade of the same color, and also has national title successes, which is no disrespect to a really good , emerging Mercer Football program...It's just a different league of elite. It's oranges and tangerines to be fair.
It will mark the first time since 2011 that the Paladins have closed a campaign against an FBS foe, with the last time that happened being Bruce Fowler's first campaign as the head coach, as Furman closed out the season with a trip to Florida, which saw the Gators post a 54-32 win, despite Furman jumping out to a two-score first-half lead.
A win in that contest against the Gators would have been likely enough to have pushed that edition of Furman football into the FCS Playoffs, with wins over a pair of top five teams that season, in No. 5 Wofford and No. 3 Appalachian State. A late-season loss to Elon negated that momentum, and ultimately proved costly with Florida being the final game on the schedule.
While winning is always the goal whenever Furman steps on the field against any foe, sporting a national title lineage (1988) of its own and a Southern Conference best 15 league titles, playing well to close the 2025 season and continue to take steps towards competing for a 16th time in 2026 are the ultimate goals for Furman's season finale on Saturday.
It will mark the 59th all-time meeting between the Tigers and Paladins, with Clemson holding a commanding 44-10-4 lead in the all-time series, which includes a 32-game winning streak in the series, which Clemson's longest against any of its active opponents. The Tigers have won a program standard 22-straight home games against Furman, which is more consecutive home wins than it has against any foe in its illustrious football tradition.
In 1896, it was Furman that provided the first opponent for Clemson in its outstanding football history, as the Tigers claimed what was a 14-6 win on that occasion in a contest, which was played in Greenville. The Tigers hold a 26-2 record against the Paladins all-time at Clemson.
Clemson is 39-0 against FCS foes since 1978, while Furman comes in sporting a 6-36-1 all-time mark against FBS foes over that same span. Furman last charted a win over an FBS foe in 2015, as Furman downed UCF, 16-15, in Orlando.
Both Furman and Clemson enter the game coming off wins, with the Paladins closing out their Southern Conference slate by knocking off VMI, 32-14, last Saturday on Senior Day at Paladin Stadium, while Clemson took care of No. 19/21 Louisville with a 20-19 win at L&N Financial in what is the most-impressive win of the season for the Tigers to date.
Furman and Clemson last met three years ago, as Clemson posted a 35-12 win over a solid Paladin team back in 2022. It would be a noteworthy early-season meeting for the Paladins for several reasons, but most notably it would be a benchmark game for the program that would help propel it to 19 succeeding wins, an outright Southern Conference title, and a trip to the 2023 FCS Quarterfinals where the Paladins would eventually lose an overtime heartbreaker, 35-28, to Montana.
Many would point to the Clemson game on Sept. 10, 2022, as a jumping off point for where the success over the course of those two seasons would really begin. It was thanks in large part to the offensive production that Paladins achieved against a defensive unit widely regarded as among the best in the nation year-in and year-out for the better part of a decade coming into the 2022 season. Yet the Paladins posted a 384-376 advantage in total offense in that game.
Quarterback Tyler Huff was sensational for the Paladins against the Tigers, and it would really be where his reliability as a dual-threat quarterback would be born, finishing the contest 30-of-39 passing for 256 yards and a touchdown. Not to be overshadowed was the performance turned in by tight end Ryan Miller on that particular afternoon, as he set a Memorial Stadium record for receptions by an opposing player, hauling in 13 passes for 95 yards and a touchdown.
The 13 catches by Miller also matched a school record, and his 25-yard scoring catch in the second quarter marked Furman's lone trip to the end zone in the game.
Previewing Clemson:
Clemson comes into Saturday afternoon's contest against the Paladins at 5-5 overall, needing one win to secure its bowl eligibility heading into next Saturday's game against South Carolina (3-7) in Columbia.
While Furman's season can be seen as an overall improvement, Clemson's, at least as a whole, will be viewed by many of its diehard and loyal fans as a major disappointment.
Head coach Dabo Swinney has recently seen plenty of positives moving forward into the 2026, as he referenced in his weekly press conference this past Monday, and he focused his press conference on roster retention and discussing the tentative 2026 roster moving forward.
All that being said, the importance of getting that sixth win Saturday heading into a rivalry game against South Carolina is vital, as it would give the Tigers a little bit less pressure heading into the regular-season finale. Should the Tigers be able to come up with that sixth win on Saturday, it would mark the 27th-straight season in which Clemson has been able to win at least six games in a season.
It will be Senior Day for the Tigers, and it will be a very special one for quarterback Cade Klubnik, who has stuck with the Clemson program through the "ups", but most importantly, the "downs" during his Tigers career, and that perhaps what fans should remember most and never lose sight of.
Klubnik enters Saturday's game on the back of two strong performances in leading the Tigers to wins over both Florida State (W, 24-10) and at No. 19/20 Louisville (W, 20-19). Klubnik is attempting to become the sixth quarterback since World War II to win at least 25 games as a starter in a career, and he is also attempting to tie former Clemson signal-caller Charlie Whitehurst (25) for fifth all-time in program wins for a quarterback.
Through nine starts so far this season, Klubnik has connected on 202-of-299 passes for 2,323 yards, with 14 TDs and five INTs. He has also rushed for 111 yards three touchdowns to account for 2,434 yards of total offense and 17 touchdown responsibilities.
Klubnik plays behind a Tigers offensive line that has done a pretty solid of protecting him this season, as the Tigers offensive front has surrendered a modest 15 sacks through 10 games. The senior signal-caller leads a Clemson offense that averages 399.2 YPG and 27.1 PPG through 10 games this season. The senior's 9,503 career passing yards currently ranks fifth in program history behind Tahj Boyd (11,904 yds), Deshaun Watson (10,163 yds), Trevor Lawrence (10,068 yds) and Charlie Whitehurst (9,665 yds).
The leading option on the ground has been Adam Randall, who enters Saturday's game against the Paladins having rushed for 675 yards and eight scores on 131 rush attempts, averaging a solid 5.2 YPC.
Randall is looking to continue a strong tradition at the position, as the Tigers have had a running back rush for 10 or more touchdowns in a season over the past 11 seasons coming into the 2025 campaign. With two rushing scores in the final two games against Furman and South Carolina, Randall could extend that trend 12-straight seasons and 11-straight years. Randall scored at least one rushing score in each of Clemson's first six games.
He also more than capable of catching the ball out the backfield and making things happen in the passing game, having hauled in 29 passes for 239 yards and three scores so far this season.
With names like Roscoe Crosby, Airese Curry, Sammie Watkins, DeAndre Hopkins, and Tee Higgins to come through the program since the dawn of the new millennium, it's no wonder Clemson has come to be known as "Wide Receiver U" over the years.
That was one of the major questions that many have had over the previous couple of seasons coming into 2024, and then the emergence of guys like Bryant Wesco Jr. and Antonio Williams changed the narrative back to Clemson once again being a program with "big-play" wideouts.
Unfortunately, a serious injury to Wesco against SMU ended his 2025 season prematurely, however, the Tigers still have some of the best weapons in the ACC entering Saturday's contest against the Paladins, headlined by Williams. Prior to Wesco's injury, he had compiled a total of six 100-yard receiving games over the past two seasons.
Through the eight games he has played in this season, Williams has hauled in 46 passes for 481 yards and two scores, averaging 10.5 yards-per-reception.
In Wesco's absence, TJ Moore has stepped up and been a major big-play weapon in the Tigers passing game this season, leading the team in receiving yards (604), while ranking second in receptions (37) and touchdown catches (4).
The other major producer at wide receiver this season has been Tristan Smith, who transferred into Clemson's program from an FCS program, as he came from SEMO. Smith has hauled in 21 passes for 228 yards and a touchdown this season.
Much like Furman, Clemson never under-utilizes its tight end or relegates them to just another blocking option within the scheme of the offense like many programs do during this day and age, and like the Paladins, the Tigers make the tight end a very big part of the passing game.
Last season, Clemson's Jake Briningstool completed one of the more successful careers by a tight end in recent memory for a Tigers tight end, and he is now with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Filling Briningstool's rather large shoes left at the position this season have been both Christian Betancur (12 rec, 129 yds, 2 TDs, 10.8 YPR), as well as Olsen Patt-Henry (15 rec, 114 yds), and both are listed as potential starters for Saturday's Senior Day contest against Furman.
Clemson's OL came into the 2025 with the return of four of five regulars along its front line, which has two ironmen among its returning veteran starters from last season, with right tackle Blake Miller having and center Ryan Linthicum headlining a unit that has made 249 combined game appearances, including 135 starts and 10,403 career snaps.
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