The Clemson Tigers are the American football team at Clemson University. The Tigers compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Atlantic Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). In recent years, the Tigers have been ranked among the most elite college football programs in the United States.

Auburn University is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama, US. With more than 26,800 undergraduate students, over 6,100 post-graduate students, and a total enrollment of more than 33,000 students with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second-largest university in Alabama. It is one of the state's two flagship public universities. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity".