ESPN College GameDay planning Clemson vs. LSU as destination for Week 1

ESPN College GameDay‘s 2026 slate will open with a bang. The show is heading to the Week 1 matchup between Clemson and LSU, On3’s Pete Nakos reports. The game will mark Lane Kiffin‘s first as LSU‘s head coach inside Tiger Stadium.

After that news, College GameDay also announced its Week 2 location. The show is headed to Austin, Tex., to watch Texas host Ohio State.

With Kiffin facing off against his former program, Ole Miss, in Week 3, LSU will more than likely be featured in two of GameDay’s first three shows of the 2026 season.

In a battle of preseason top-10 ranked teams, Clemson and LSU faced off inside Memorial Stadium to kick off the 2025 season. While at the time this seemed to be an uber important game for the College Football Playoff race, that did not come to fruition.

Although LSU came away with the 17-10 win over the No. 4 ranked team in the country, it finished with a 7-6 (3-5) record and parted ways with head coach Brian Kelly mid-season. Clemson, which opened the season with an 0-1 record, finished 7-6 (4-4) and failed to hit the eight-win mark under head coach Dabo Swinney for the first time since 2010.

Dabo Swinney defended Lane Kiffin’s departure for LSU opening

2026 seems poised to be a bounce back season for Clemson and LSU, both of which are seeking a return to national relevance. LSU has not made an appearance in the College Football Playoff since 2019, when Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase led the Tigers to a National Championship. Clemson has not appeared in the College Football Playoff since 2020, where it was blown out by Ohio State 49-28 in the Sugar Bowl.

Kiffin shocked the college football world ahead of last season’s College Football Playoff, when he departed from Ole Miss for the LSU job. While many slandered Kiffin for jumping ship just before the Rebels’ first Playoff run in program history, Clemson‘s Dabo Swinney actually defended the move when discussing how the CFB calendar is set up.

“There’s three main big, primary problems (in college football), and there’s one primary cause. … It’s because our current calendar is stupid,” Swinney said. “I don’t know how else to say it. It’s just stupid. … What planet am I living on? This is not what college football is all about. 

“Players are leaving early because they’re trying to get ahead of this calendar, because the calendar is forcing them to do this. They’re being forced to make these early decisions,” Swinney continued. “Coaches like (new LSU head coach) Lane Kiffin are leaving teams amid Playoff runs. And listen, right or wrong, whether you agree with it or don’t agree with it personally, … professionally I understand. He’s trying to get ahead of the calendar so he can be successful at the next job. He didn’t create the calendar. … So let’s fix the problem.”

Kick-off for the Week 1 meeting between LSU and Clemson in Baton Rouge has still yet to be revealed.