Have you considered the possibility we needed a road game

in 2015 as a result of previously scheduled "home" games against Wake Forest and BC? I know the BC game that ended up at Fenway was already scheduled as a home game, and I'm not sure about the Wake Forest game. But if both of those were already scheduled, that would mean that 3 of the other 4 ACC games that year would need to be on the road. That would mean that the Clemson game had a 75% chance of being on the road based on luck of the draw. If the Wake game wasn't already scheduled, then it still gives the Clemson game a 60% chance of being on the road. I would bet that there was nothing fishy going on with the scheduling of the 2015 Clemson game.

As for 2014, I'm pretty sure the Syracuse game at Giants stadium was already scheduled but was considered a Syracuse home game, which meant that 2 of the remaining 3 ACC games would be at home. So that gives the FSU game only a 33% chance of being on the road, which kind of supports your theory. Looking at FSU's schedule, they were already going to play nonconference games vs Oklahoma St (in Dallas to open the season), and their annual game vs Florida to end the season. I think that if FSU wanted to influence the scheduling, wouldn't they have lobbied to avoid ND entirely that season? I would bet that FSU had no voice in whether their number got called to play ND in 2014, but I suppose it's plausible that once their number got called they may have lobbied the schedule makers with a plea such as "Look, we already scheduled the Oklahoma St game in order to strengthen our nonconference schedule, if we must play a 3rd quality nonconference opponent can we at least play them at home?"

At the end of the day, I don't think it's that big a deal. I dig the fact that both teams were scheduled to play their initial games at ND Stadium in November.