Clemson Football Affected by Hurricane Helene, as well

CLEMSON — The affects of Hurricane Helene have been felt all over the Southeast over the last three days.

Helene’s massive rains and powerful wins left people stranded, homeless and others without power, as the massive storm ran through parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. In all, Helene killed at least 64 people, caused widespread destruction and left millions without power.

These are all reasons why Clemson’s football team was glad it was able to play Saturday night, as they hoped their 40-14 win over Stanford helped their fans forget about Hurricane Helene and the destruction she left for at least three hours.

“In the midst of all the chaos, we just kind of wanted to put smiles on people’s faces today. I am glad we did that,” Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik said. “There are people on our team that lost houses. There is a lot of Clemson fans that had a lot of hardship over the last couple of days.

“We just wanted to bring a smile to their face, and, hopefully, we did that.”

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said there were quite a few players and coaches that have been dealing with the affects of Helene.

“We had a lot of players impacted, we had a lot of staff,” he said. “We had staff with trees through their house. I had trees down. Most of us have no power. A lot of kids from Florida have been impacted.

“It is a challenge for everybody. You look at what has happened in Tampa, St. Pete and some of those areas, down in the Big Bend and all of that, there are a lot of people devastated, especially all of those people in the St. Pete area. That thing was 155 mph out and the surge was overwhelming.”

Swinney said a good part of his players were impacted in some way by the storm. He mentioned he saw some of the parents before the game.

“Everybody is going to work through it,” he said.

The good news, at least for three hours on Saturday, Clemson was able to help a lot of families just get away from Helene and smile a little bit in the process.