What school has the right to call itself Death Valley?

There has been a huge debate going on this week between LSU and Clemson as to who has the right to call themselves Death Valley.

LSU head coach Brian Kelly took a shot at Clemson earlier this week about who is the real Death Valley when he spoke at an LSU event earlier this week.

"You want attention to detail on fourth-and-goal. You want great habits. They're needed when you're on the road and you're playing in Death Valley 'Junior' -- not 'the' Death Valley -- that's what you need, you need those traits on a day-to-day basis," Kelly said during a LSU Rotary Club meeting in Baton Rouge.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney didn’t take too kindly to those comments. 

"There's always fuel for the fire," Swinney said. "You can take whatever you want, everybody's different, and they can be motivated by different things along the way. You know, Michael Jordan used to make stuff up, right? For those of you following Michael Jordan, he would just make stuff up, whether it was true or not, because that was how he motivated himself on some things. But, everybody's different in that regard."

But who really has the right too call itself Death Valley? Both schools have won over two-thirds of their games at home, LSU at 73 percent and Clemson at 76 percent, but what separates one from the other is the vibe and memorable games.

The vibe before LSU games, especially night games, is legendary. The tailgating, the food, and the partying before and after games are still talked about years later.

And the list of memorable games includes Billy Cannon’s run against Ole Miss on Halloween, the Earthquake game against Auburn, and the 2022 victory against Alabama to win the SEC West, just to name a few.

Plus, LSU’s Death Valley has been around a little bit longer than Clemson, and when most people think of the tougher place to play, most will say it’s at LSU. Sorry Clemson.

The debate can be ended on the field when the pair face each other home and home in 2025 and 2026.