FanHouse GeorgiaDome

The 2008 college football season will open with a marquee SEC-ACC matchup in Atlanta's Georgia Dome. Alabama will face Clemson on August 30 in a game organized by the Peach Chick-fil-a Bowl committee. It's a new tradition that bowl group hopes to keep going in years to come; the plan is to have an ACC-SEC game in the Dome to begin each season.

Scheduling this game means Clemson will be bookending its season with SEC teams (the Tigers will play South Carolina on Nov. 29) with the rest of the non-conference slate consisting of The Citadel and South Carolina State. Alabama rounds out its non-con with yawners against Tulane, Western Kentucky, and Arkansas State. Most of that sounds terribly boring -- and it looks like Bama is dodging UL-Monroe this year -- but at least we're all getting a quality non-conference game out of it.

Alabama has beaten Clemson 11 straight times but not one of them came in the last 30 years -- the two teams haven't met since 1975. When reminded of that fact, Clemson's Tommy Bowden said:

"Do you happen to have the score from that last game? It's not a rivalry."

Thanks, coach. I'm sure the Peach Chick-fil-a people are happy to hear you sucking the juice out of this game by pointing out its relative unimportance. Still, I'm sure that neither school will have any trouble getting rid of their allotment of tickets, and since this whole SEC-ACC showdown was proposed here on FanHouse by yours truly back in May, I'll be expecting my complementary passes in the mail any day now.