Clemson's Digital Video Team Remains at the Top of Its Game During Yet Another CFP Championship Game Run New staffers, new gear, new platforms, same mission in Clemson's visual storytelling quest By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, January 17, 2020 - 12:54 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Every successful culture has a simple, but deeply engrained mission. The wildly successful digital media team at Clemson Athletics is no different.
With appearances in four championship games (and five semifinals) in the six-year history of the College Football Playoff, it would be easy for this group to allow themselves to grow stale. Instead, they remain the standard-bearers of video success in a social media age.
Clemson brought a team of 11 staff and students to produce digital and social content at the CFP National Championship Game in New Orleans. Top (left to right): Jonathan Gantt, David Platt, Dawson Powers, Carly Gough, Jack Birchfield, and Whitley Ruffin. Bottom (left to right): Madison Williams, Tyson Hutchins, Taryn Carroll, Alex Mueller, and Nik Conklin.
New students, new host cities, and new opponents always help bring a level of freshness to the football proceedings, but Clemson's digital video and design team have continually found success as the pioneers of social video by staying true to one North Star.
The main principles have always been to answer the question what it's like to be a Clemson Tiger?' says Jonathan Gantt, associate athletics director of creative solutions for Clemson. To focus on content that helps recruit student athletes to Clemson. That remains the same. How we package it is always different.
Changes In Personnel and Gear Through the Years
Since the team's 2014 appearance in the Orange Bowl where it topped Ohio State and Gantt was largely running around the stadium producing content by himself - it's been a steady and spectacular climb to the top for the Tigers digital media team, accompanied by important hires, and expanded student staff, and an investment in the tools to make all of the talent sing.
While we joke that these media wizards in orange are here every year, the truth of the matter is that there is a healthy turnover in staff year in and year out, whether it's in the form of full time staff or, especially, students. So how does Gantt keep his group prepared to deliver the high quality work that's expected from it at an even like the CFP? Consistency.
We're trying to put our best foot forward from Game One, says Gantt, who has been with Clemson since 2013. I had a lot of the new employees come up to me leading up to this and ask, okay, so what do we do that's different? I say, nothing. You keep doing the same thing that you've been doing for 20 weeks now. It's a nice thing to be able to rely on it for those people who are nervous or maybe a little bit anxious about going through something for the first time and feeling like they don't know what to do. No, you've been doing it week in and week out and the only way we can mess up is if we don't execute the same way that we have been. So there's a lot more people around, there's a lot more people paying attention, but ultimately the content plan and the way that we execute is exactly the same as it has been from Week One.
Want to know what makes Clemson special?
Watch
: https://t.co/CUnsUJvpgS
: https://t.co/Zz6DKZp3ol
: https://t.co/rwlAWtbxtQ
Because at Clemson, it s different.#ALLIN pic.twitter.com/pYwMBIfADA
Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) January 8, 2020
This year's group is again a loaded one, with Tyson Hutchins, a super-talented content creator that the Tigers recently added to the staff after a successful run at Brigham Young University's athletics department. Clemson's semifinal appearance in the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl was his first day on the job.
For me, Clemson was always the gold standard of social for the way it was shot, the way it was executed, the way it was produced and published, says Hutchins. Now to have had that background and that affinity for the way things had been done and following that process, it's I frankly have to pinch myself sometimes. Now I am part of this machine that has been such an example for everyone in the industry. I feel extremely fortunate, to say the least.
Hutchins is taking over the role of Senior Director of Creative Solutions from Nik Conklin, who worked his final event with the Tigers at this CFP National Championship Game. At Clemson since 2014, Conklin played a transformational work that strongly steered the modern era of social video not just at Clemson, but industry wide.
Specializing in video at this CFP, Conklin and Hutchins were joined by Associate Director of Creative Solutions Carly Gough and student videographers Jack Birchfield and Alex Mueller. The remainder of the creative team is filled out by designers, publishers, and photographers. That included Taryn Carroll and Whitley Ruffin (who are both Associate Directors of Creative Solutions), Coordinator of Creative Media Madison Williams, and photographers David Platt and Dawson Powers.
In terms of video gear, the squad was shooting primarily with devices from Sony and Canon. There's a Sony PXW-FS7, a Sony A7S III, and a Canon EOS C300, all paired with Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM lenses. The crew was also outfitted with a number of Canon EOS 5D Mark IVs combined with a mix of 50mm prime and 24-70mm zoom lenses.
The blend is really a result of Clemson's digital media continuing to more deeply integrate with its linear video department colleagues that are working in their first year of the ESPN-supported ACC Network. Gantt says that
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
New appointments to Screen Australia board 7 July 2026
The Albanese Labor Government has made new appointments to the Screen Australia board.
Dr Tania Chamber...
07/07/2026
The right team. The right time.' How The Killings at Parrish Station stuck t...
07/07/2026
Berklee College of Music Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's...
07/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists train the immune system to make antibodies against numerous HIV strains Preclinical findings mark progress toward a long-sought vacc...
06/07/2026
Long-developed relationships and informal access, three production models, and c...
06/07/2026
The deal follows Lumine's recent acquisition of Synamedia's video-networ...
06/07/2026
This former SportsCenter producer is shaping local-team studio coverage to surro...
06/07/2026
IMS Productions and FOX Sports deployed more than 100 cameras, 32 onboard feeds,...
06/07/2026
Lumine Group Inc. has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Video Network Business from Synamedia. The business will operate as a standalone compan...
06/07/2026
NASCAR has announced a content and commercial partnership with Motorsport Network, a motorsports and automotive media platform, to distribute NASCAR original co...
06/07/2026
Versant Media Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Full Swing, a sports technology company, from Bruin Capital and a group of minority investor...
06/07/2026
DAZN has announced global broadcast rights to 3ICE, a professional hockey format featuring three skaters and a goalkeeper per side, with no power plays or offsi...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
06/07/2026
Digital Domain Appoints Industry Veteran Patrick Davenport as Executive Vice Pre...
06/07/2026
Gravity Media USA appoints Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development
Brie Clayton July 6, 2026
0 Comments
The strategic new appointment supports...
06/07/2026
Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage in Resolve
Michael Cioni July 6, 2026
0 Comments
This is a step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to setup your...
06/07/2026
Automatic Caption Translation in Adobe Premiere Pro
Colin Smith July 6, 2026
0 Comments
Here I showcase the innovative automatic caption translation f...
06/07/2026
Flavor's First Ever Managing Director Neal Cohen Retires; Longstanding Execu...
06/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Medtech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might think...
06/07/2026
Zhongyi Optics unveils the Dreamy Zone T1 FF Cine Lens Series on Indiegogo with ...
06/07/2026
Open source AI has shown how quickly developers can innovate when models, data a...
06/07/2026
Techtel debuts insyght: making ST 2110 media discovery easy
intellisphereinsyght2026
6 July Written By Suzanne Costello
Sydney, Australia - 06 July 2026 T...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, protect and use their data, and take advantage of technology opportunities in ...
06/07/2026
Every year, the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) reveals where thousands of AI researchers have decided to put their work.
This year's ...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
We've gone to another level of integrating the graphics into the set architecture' - Zac Fields, SVP, Graphic Technology and Integration, FOX Sports...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Clemson's Digital Video Team Remains at the Top of Its Game During Yet Another CFP Championship Game Run New staffers, new gear, new platforms, same mission in Clemson's visual storytelling quest By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
