‘SNL’ Fans Were Furious About Clemson And Notre Dame’s 2OT Thriller Delaying The Show’s Start

There was a tremendous amount of anticipation for this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live, as Dave Chappelle was once again hosting the first post-election episode and, finally, on Saturday morning all of the major news networks called the election for Joe Biden, who gave his victory speech along with Kamala Harris on Saturday evening.

For NBC, Saturday was a massive day as they had SNL as the nightcap but prior to that, they had No. 4 Notre Dame hosting No. 1 Clemson in one of the biggest games of the college football season. The problem with having a live sporting event ahead of something as big as Saturday’s episode of SNL is that, well, sometimes football games go into overtime and run well over their TV slot. Wouldn’t you know it, but that’s exactly what happened in South Bend, Indiana as Clemson and Notre Dame found themselves deadlocked at 33 at the end of regulation and it took two overtimes for the Irish to pull out a 47-40 win.

Not only was the game a double overtime affair, but it featured numerous lengthy replay reviews that further slowed things down, and by the time it was over, SNL had been pushed back significantly — in part due to NBC still needing a brief window after the game for local news. This, unsurprisingly, led to some very upset people who flipped over to their local NBC affiliate on Saturday night looking for Chappelle and SNL, only to be treated to two of college football’s best teams slowly battling for ACC supremacy. They did not enjoy that gift of free football.

Those waiting to watch SNL also had plenty of thoughts about the Notre Dame students storming the field in the midst of a pandemic (which, to be clear, should not happen).