LSU x Clemson Student Media ahead of Saturday’s Game

The 2026 football season kicked off with a historic game: LSU’s Tigers versus Clemson’s Tigers, Death Valley versus Death Valley, and the SEC versus ACC. Despite the weekend’s rivalry, LSU and Clemson’s student media subverted the competitive atmosphere, choosing instead to collaborate on their respective student-run media platforms, sharing perspectives and experiences to their respective audiences while connecting over a shared passion for college football. 

LSU’s student newspaper, the Reveille, partnered with Clemson’s The Tiger to publish a special 16-page edition this past Thursday. The football preview opened with a joint letter from the sports editors explaining the significance of the game and the importance of the collaboration. 

Although the collaboration primarily involved the digital and sports departments, all sections of the Reveille were featured in the special edition, including articles on updated tailgate rules, food at Tiger Stadium, and opinion pieces on the match itself. 

Laura Allen, editor-in-chief at the Reveille, and Garrett McEntee, managing editor at the Reveille, attributed the project’s success to strong communication and a solid working relationship with the editor in chief at The Tiger.

“Throughout my career, this would be the first time where I’ve ever had a co-editor, and Clemson showed me how much I love working and collaborating with others to create a final product for our audience,” McEntee said.

Alex Sheesley, sports editor at the Reveille, wanted to represent the Reveille newsroom to a broader audience while maintaining high editorial standards. Sheesley encouraged everyone to pitch ideas for the special edition despite the intimidating nature of football coverage at a large school. The main objective with the football preview was to provide a unique and intimate student perspective on college football that differs from professional media, and collaborating with the competition from the weekend was the best way to provide different outlooks on the game. 

“I want them to see that there is value in perspective. Professional media do not have as intimate of an understanding as student journalists because the students live it,” Sheesley said. “To be able to have a second perspective on this game, to go outside of the LSU bubble with the same student perspective but a different point of view and bringing that to our readers is going to be something that strengthens our collaborative edition.”

Tiger TV, LSU’s student-run broadcast news platform, facilitated a studio tour for some of Tigervision’s anchors. The Clemson team was able to observe how the LSU newsroom operates and engaged in discussions with the Tiger TV team. While Clemson representatives did not appear on the Tiger Tailgate show this past Saturday due to timing issues, Danielle Rancifer, Tiger TV station manager, noted that they have successfully collaborated with other schools on-air in the past and future collaborations are planned between Tiger TV and other newsrooms. 

The student media collaboration was more than a collaboration on written work or meetings; it connected students from different schools and brought new experiences and ideas to the table. 

“When you get to meet with another student media team who understands the constructs of being professional media workers and also being full-time students, it’s really refreshing to share little secrets and share little ways of operations that might transfer really well over to our station or vice versa,” Rancifer said. 

The collaboration left Allen, editor in chief at the Reveille, with a future goal of expanding the Reveille's collaboration with student media organizations like The Tiger. “If we have a collaboration in the future with Clemson or another newspaper, I’d like for it to grow into an even more section-wide, Reveille-wide collaboration–but small steps,” said Allen. 

Rancifer has a similar outlook on the future of Tiger TV partnerships with other schools, “Collaborating on air is definitely something that we wanted to do, and it’s something we have done in the past, and we’ll continue to do when LA Tech comes next week.”

The scoreboard at Tiger Stadium might have defined the game, but the joint effort of LSU and Clemson’s student media teams proved that rivalry and respect can coexist. By stepping out of their respective campus bubbles, student media professionals at LSU and Clemson turned a high-stakes season opener into an opportunity to connect and grow as professionals. 

“The Clemson collaboration was a good reminder that journalism is the least solitary career in the world,” McEntee said, managing editor of the Reveille.