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LSU football coach Brian Kelly calls Clemson football stadium 'Death Valley Junior'
- Story byThe Daily Advertiser
- LSU football coach Brian Kelly calls Clemson football stadium 'Death Valley Junior'
BATON ROUGE —One of the debates surrounding the 2025 season opener showdown between LSU football and Clemson has zeroed in on the nickname both programs use for their home stadiums.
'Which is the real Death Valley ?' has been a question lofted out there and some on social media have even gone as far to suggest the teams should play for the rights to call their stadium the moniker. LSU head coach Brian Kelly jokingly said at SEC Media Days earlier this month that LSU was letting Clemson borrow the name.
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LSU and Kelly hit the road to face Clemson and Dabo Swinney in prime time in one of college football's opening weekend's marquee matchups inside Clemson's Memorial Stadium on Aug. 30 (6:30 p.m. CT, ABC).
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During his annual preseason visit to the Baton Rouge Rotary Club on Wednesday, Kelly told the LSU crowd that the real Death Valley resides in town.
"You want great habits when they're needed, when you're on the road and you're playing at 'Death Valley Junior.' Not the Death Valley," he said.
Kelly and his team have made it clear in the leadup to preseason practice and the season that a lot of the team's offseason work and focus has been placed squarely on the opener against Clemson, which is expected to be a team that makes the College Football Playoff come season's end.
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Clemson paw prints have been taped to tackling dummies and bags as well as 1-0 on monitors all over LSU's football facility for players to see and be reminded.
"I want to play the best team every week because those are the fun games to play in — prime-time TV, 7:30, ABC — those are the games you live for," LSU junior linebacker Whit Weeks said at SEC Media Days. "That's why I play football, to play in environments like that, play against teams like that. My motto is in order to be the best, you've got to beat the best.
"That's what you want. You want to go play a good team, you don't want to lollygag into the season; you want to get into a fistfight the first week."
Clemson players have noticed Kelly's latest comments on the Death Valley debate and some were asked about it at the team's appearance at ACC Media Days on Thursday morning.
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"We're going to handle all the talk, all that, they can have their opinion but we're going to handle that Aug. 30," Clemson star senior defensive end T.J. Parker said. "At the end of the day, we still do all talking, we still got to play. So we're going to see.
"They're hyping up everybody across the board, all these big transfers they got, but we'll see."
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com .
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU's Brian Kelly calls Clemson football stadium 'Death Valley Junior'
