The year-long, all-sports competition between Clemson and South Carolina, with results from every season since 2015.
Each block is one season, labeled by the year it ended. Striped seasons were not contested.
The Palmetto Series is a points race covering nearly every head-to-head meeting between Clemson and South Carolina in a school year. It starts with fall sports in August and wraps up with baseball, softball, tennis, and golf in the spring. Whichever school finishes with more points takes the Palmetto Series trophy, which is presented on the field at a home football game the following fall.
The two schools and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture launched it at the State House in August 2015. The series covers every sport the two schools play against each other. The football game on its own is the Palmetto Bowl, which has a separate trophy.
Each sport is worth one point. When the teams meet more than once in a sport, like baseball's three-game series or several golf tournaments in a season, the school that wins the majority of those meetings takes the point. A draw, like the 0–0 women's soccer match in 2022–23, awards no point to either school. The original version also counted postseason meetings, and a split between the regular season and the postseason left each school with half a point.
The series has always included a few points that aren't decided in competition. Under the current sponsor, the South Carolina Education Lottery, one point goes to the school with more LIFE Scholarship recipients, one to the school with more Palmetto Fellows recipients, and one to the school whose fans submit more entries in the Lottery's rivalry scratch-off promotion. In the original version, the extra points went to the school with the higher average student-athlete GPA across the fall and spring semesters and to the winner of a canned food drive for Harvest Hope and Golden Harvest food banks.
South Carolina won the first five series. Clemson won its first in 2023–24 by one point, and the trophy has changed hands every year since.
| Season | Winner | Final | Presented by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015–16 | South Carolina | SC Dept. of Agriculture | |
| 2016–17 | South Carolina | SC Dept. of Agriculture | |
| 2017–18 | South Carolina | 9–5 | SC Dept. of Agriculture |
| 2018–19 | South Carolina | 9.5–4.5 | SC Dept. of Agriculture |
| 2019–22 | Not contested | ||
| 2022–23 | South Carolina | 8–5 | SC Education Lottery |
| 2023–24 | Clemson | 7–6 | SC Education Lottery |
| 2024–25 | South Carolina | 7–4 | SC Education Lottery |
| 2025–26 | Clemson | 7–5 | SC Education Lottery |
The first four series were sponsored by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture as the Certified SC Grown Palmetto Series. The department used it to promote locally grown food, with a Certified SC Grown tailgate before the football game and an annual food drive. South Carolina won all four. The closest was 2016–17, decided by a single point. South Carolina's 9–5 win in 2017–18 came mostly from its women's teams.
After a three-year break during the COVID-19 pandemic, the series returned in 2022–23 with the South Carolina Education Lottery as sponsor. The Lottery replaced the GPA and food drive points with scholarship and fan-entry points. Softball had been on the list of scoring sports since 2015, but Clemson didn't field a team until 2020, so 2022–23 was the first year it produced a point. South Carolina extended its streak to five with an 8–5 win. It was the first time either school won football, baseball, and both basketball games in the same series. Clemson won its first title the next year, 7–6, then South Carolina took it back 7–4 in 2024–25. Clemson won 2025–26, 7–5, with points in football, men's basketball, baseball, men's soccer, volleyball, and men's tennis.
Each series starts with fall sports in August and wraps up in April or May, and the winner is announced shortly after. Both athletic departments post the running score and the schedule of remaining Palmetto Series events on their official pages at gamecocksonline.com and clemsontigers.com. This page is updated once a year, when the new winner is official.
For the football side of the rivalry, see the all-time Clemson vs. South Carolina record, every Palmetto Bowl result, and tickets for this year's game.