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Clemson football's new video board, which sits atop the hill at Memorial Stadium, is 125 feet by 57 feet, which is 7,100 square feet. The previous video board was 1,550 square feet. Courtesy photo/Clemson Athletics

Clemson spent about $15 million to install the new video board, along with new ribbon boards, a new lighting system, and other infrastructure changes to accommodate the upgrades. Courtesy photo/Clemson Athletics

Clemson football's new video board, which sits atop the hill at Memorial Stadium, is 125 feet by 57 feet, which is 7,100 square feet. The previous video board was 1,550 square feet. Courtesy photo/Clemson Athletics

Clemson spent about $15 million to install the new video board, along with new ribbon boards, a new lighting system, and other infrastructure changes to accommodate the upgrades. Courtesy photo/Clemson Athletics

CLEMSON — On the morning of Sept. 1, Clemson athletic director Graham Neff texted football coach Dabo Swinney a video of a two-dimensional Tiger rising to the top of Memorial Stadium’s new video board.

It looked like the smallest of cherries atop an electronic sundae, but the steel cutout of a roaring Tiger is nearly 17 feet wide and 10 feet tall. The oversized ornament, with flashing LED lights in its eyes, was lifted by crane atop a video board that is 125 feet wide and 57 feet tall.

“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” Swinney said of the board, which he couldn’t have missed as it rose behind Clemson’s famous hill in August. “I mean, we’ve scrimmaged over there a few times. It’s been really cool to watch it. I mean, it’s awesome what’s going on.”

Swinney went on to list a host of facility upgrades, including an expansion of the wellness area in the Allen N. Reeves Football Complex and the addition of a branding institute for athletes to take advantage of name, image, and likeness payouts. But the video board, which will be ready for Clemson’s Sept. 10 home opener with Furman, might be the most awe-inspiring addition.

The old video board, installed in 2012, was 62 feet wide and 25 feet tall, which amounted to 1,550 square feet. That ranked as the 84th-biggest video board in college football.

This new board, built by Daktronics, comes in at 7,100 square feet, which gives Clemson the 8th-largest screen in college football. It’s the largest in South Carolina, and it ranks second in the ACC, behind Florida State’s 120-by-63 model.

Of course, such a giant screen, which makes Death Valley's hill look like a grass-themed TV stand, came at a substantial cost. The video board and its components, plus the Tiger cutout — complete with a tail that wags — set the athletic department back approximately $7 million.

But Clemson also had to pay for the infrastructure to support the board, as well as adjusting the sidewalks and the angle of the road immediately outside of the stadium. Add in new ribbon boards, new corner video boards, and new stadium lights, and that piece of the stadium project totaled about $15 million.

It’s a big chunk of an estimated $65 million in renovations for Memorial Stadium, $40 million of which had been scheduled to be spent and completed ahead of the 2022 football season. The next phase, set to begin after this season, will double the size of Clemson’s locker room behind the west end zone, renovate the Lot 5 parking area and create a fleshed-out Tiger Walk experience.

The latter, according to Swinney, will include a feature that honors the football program’s captains through the years.

“They are going to rip out lot 5 and really make Tiger Walk a place that people come visit year-round,” Swinney said.

The new video board and lighting components will certainly add to the ambiance at Memorial Stadium.

There are lights attached to the brick bases below the board, which can illuminate the area where the Tigers enter Death Valley before their run down the hill. The light poles around the stadium are an LED system that allow for individual light control and spotlighting — imagine a focused beam, more like a laser-pointer than a flashlight — on features like Howard’s Rock.

Night games will allow Clemson to really play with the board’s features. The apparatus is backlit, so the side that faces campus can light up like any color in the rainbow, including orange or purple. Inside the stadium, the board’s humongous screen and the new ribbon boards can flood the playing surface with any color of Clemson's choosing.

Also, the Tiger atop the video board — twice as tall as the previous Tiger — can wag its tail and have its eyes light up after a touchdown, but it also can retract into and out of the video board. At this time, though, there are no plans to lower and raise the Tiger in-game like the Mets' Big Apple.

Of course, the board's screen will be the real show-stopper. It has a resolution of 3872-by-1760, which amounts to a whopping 6,814,720 pixels, many times more than the 641,000 pixels of its predecessor. According to Daktronics, Clemson should have the highest-resolution board in the country.

Not to mention, the board’s sound system has 32 loud speakers, 16 subwoofers, and four fill speakers, which combine for a maximum decibel volume of 95.5 decibels. That’s comparable to the noise of an approaching subway train, according to the Hearing Health Foundation.

Simply put, a big, big piece of hardware is sitting atop the hill. Big enough that Clemson running back Will Shipley recently chatted with former Tiger quarterback Tajh Boyd about what it would be like to take off on a touchdown run toward the East end zone. It’s the equivalent of having a giant eye in the back of one's head.

“If you break one, I’d say anywhere over 40, 50 yards, you’re going to be able to look up at that thing and see everything you need to,” said the speedy Shipley, who had to clarify that he doesn’t get all that worried about defenders catching him from behind.

“Just being able to look up, see kind of where they are, see what gear I need to switch into, and then getting into the end zone,” Shipley said, “that’s all I’m worried about.”

The board could be a "weapon" in Clemson's favor, Shipley said. For Swinney, the video board and other facility upgrades add to his Clemson sales pitch.

“There’s just a lot of cool things I’m excited about," Swinney said. "Like I’ve said, never been a better time to be a Tiger than right now.”

Follow Jon Blau on Twitter @Jon_Blau. Plus, receive the latest updates on Clemson athletics, straight to your inbox, by subscribing to The Tiger Take.

Who: Clemson vs. Georgia Tech

Jon Blau has covered Clemson athletics for The Post and Courier since 2021. A native of South Jersey, he grew up on Rocky marathons and hoagies. To get the latest Clemson sports news, straight to your inbox, subscribe to his newsletter, The Tiger Take.

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