Why Clemson, The Citadel both said no to 10-minute quarters during football game

During halftime of Saturday’s football game between Clemson and The Citadel, the head referee approached Bulldogs coach Maurice Drayton and made him an offer.

Clemson was leading The Citadel 35-0 at Memorial Stadium, and there was an option to shorten the game by cutting the remaining two quarters to 10 minutes.

“I said, ‘For what?’” Drayton recalled postgame after Clemson’s 51-14 win over the Bulldogs. “We’re not doing that. We’re here to play ball. We’re here to compete. And that’s what the messaging was to our guys.”

Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said the referees also approached him at halftime and made the same offer: to shorten the third and fourth quarters from 15 minutes to 10 minutes apiece, speeding up Clemson’s senior day home game.

Swinney had the same message as Drayton.

“I said, ‘No, we’re not doing that,’” Swinney said postgame. “I’ve got a bunch of guys that need to go play — and I need to see them play. They’ve practiced, and it’s an opportunity. Especially with where we were at halftime, you knew you’d have an opportunity to play a lot of guys.”

The game proceeded regularly with 15-minute quarters and lasted three hours and 9 minutes, a standard length for a game. After leading by 35 at halftime, Clemson ultimately won by 37.

The concept of shortening quarters pops up a few times a year in college football — usually in matchups between power conference teams and FCS teams, which are often blowouts, or similar games where a team in a higher classification is playing a lesser opponent (such as FCS vs. Division II).

For example, Auburn and FCS Alabama A&M agreed to shorten the second half of a game they played early in the season after the Tigers led by 49 at halftime.

Shortening a second half can only happen if both teams agree to it. In Saturday’s game, Clemson and The Citadel’s coaches both explained why they had their reasons to say no to that offer and keep things moving along normally.

For Swinney, Saturday’s game was a critical opportunity to play young players (including a number of true freshmen who are redshirting) as well as seniors.

The Tigers played backups on offense and defense almost the entire second half and got every senior player but one (punter Aidan Swanson) into the game for an offensive, defensive or special teams snap during Saturday’s win.

“I’m not interested in going out there and putting up 80 points,” Swinney said. “We certainly could’ve left everybody in there and try to do all that, but I wanted to see guys play. … We needed that opportunity. We needed that time.”

For Drayton, it came down to competition. A former player for The Citadel, Drayton is in his second year as coach at his alma mater. The Bulldogs were 0-11 and 0-8 in Southern Conference play in 2023 but finished the 2024 season at 5-7 (3-5 SoCon).

“We played a game inside the game,” he said. “What we told them at halftime is, ‘Hey, let’s win the third quarter. Let’s make the third quarter a game.’ We lost 10-7.”

“Then you saw, I pulled them all up. I said, ‘All right guys, we’ve got a new game. This game is just one quarter only. We can win.’ And we won the fourth quarter, so now we’ve got a win going into our offseason program and we’re excited about it.”

The Citadel indeed outscored Clemson 7-6 in the final period. In total, the Bulldogs were outscored 35-0 through two quarters, but were only outscored 16-14 in the second half while playing against primarily Tigers backup players.

Drayton — whose passionate message about competition in that moment drew praise from fans on X (formerly Twitter) — said he was stunned when refs asked him about shortening the game.

“I probably used a bad word that my mother wouldn’t be proud of,” he joked.

Clemson ‘supposed to’ keep pushing

As Clemson rotated in backups throughout the second half, the Tigers also went for it on fourth down twice — once with backup quarterback Christopher Vizzina (Cade Klubnik’s top backup) leading a drive (up 45-7), and once near the goal line on a play that ended with linebacker Barrett Carter scoring a rushing touchdown (up 45-14).

Swinney said that came down to wanting to get backup players as many reps as possible and getting Carter (who played running back in high school) an offensive touchdown on his senior day, since those two had been joking about it for months.

Was Drayton surprised Clemson and Swinney kept their foot on the gas?

“No, not at all,” Drayton said. “He’s supposed to. We expected that to happen.”

Next Clemson game

Who: No. 18 South Carolina (8-3, 5-3 SEC) at No. 17 Clemson (9-2, 7-1 ACC)

Where: Memorial Stadium in Clemson

When: noon, next Saturday, Nov. 30

TV: ESPN