As clemson players prepare for the go with the national title, fans here in the midlands are gearing up for the big game. How football followers are celebrating, here is abc columbias beth reduce. The clem columns beth russo. The Clemson Tigers punching their way to the National Championship. Leaving tiger fans cheering for miami all the way from midland. It was a tough game to start but i believe clemson opened up in the second half and made a statement. Even here in gamecock country, those who typically dont root for the tigers, say they take pride that a South Carolina team is going to the National Championship. I live in South Carolina so were a home state pride. Im going to support, even though i support the gamecocks and the terrapins, im going to support clemson because of state pride. Some are confident about the chances against the clemson i think theyre going to have a tough time against alabama but i believe theyll come through at the end. While others remain wary. Alabama strikes first. Touchdown alabama got a touchdown straight up, i dont think they can beat them, but you never know. They got the watson. They have a great tide end. The best person wins on that day. As players prep, football fans can only speculate about the outcome until the january 11th game. In columbia, beth russo, abc columbia news. Thank you, beth. A little chill in the air for the start of your 2016. What can we expect this evening . Meteorologist john farley with the conditions. Sure. Happy new year. Temperatures. Were in the 50s. Compare that to last night and its noticeably different. If you stepped out last night, you noticed temperatures were well into the 60s. Right now. Roughly ten degrees on average from last night this time. There are showers not locally but ill show you on the radar. Theyre east of 95 and theyre going to stay here and continue to push off in that direction. Whats happening for us is we have clouds in play. As the rain continues to push off to the coast, so will the lingering clouds. Here is how the temperatures will unfold the rest of the evening. Notice clouds early but well start to see breaks by the time of midnight. Well be at 50. That said, as the skies continue to clear overnight, the temperatures will be allowed to drop even farther. By the time you get up tomorrow morning, starting at 40 degrees, crystal clear. That takes us to tomorrow afternoon. The high tomorrow, 57. By the way, did a little looking back this year. If you thought it was a warm one, youre right. Ill have the specifics on those numbers. Sounds not warm enough for long. Anybody that lives on this waters for the second time in two days. Seg opened the spillways. S. E. C. Officials say recent heavy rains prompted to open the gates to keep the lake below its maximum height. Clemson university denying allegations made in lawsuits about the death of a student who died in a fraternity run in 2014. The Greenville News reports the University Filed documents in the past week refuting allegations made by the parents of tucker hips. Hips died in september 2014. His family filed two lawsuits, each seeking at least 25 million in damages. This next story is very sad. Investigators say three emaciated dogs are at an Animal Welfare center after they couldnt locate the owners. They were found at a home in fairfield street. The dogs were so skip any, most of the bones were visible. Chained around the home were surrounded by their own waste. It was empty today but in less than two weeks, the statehouse will be buzzing as lawmakers return for the second session of the legislative year. On top of the priority list, several proposals on how to help those devastated by octobers flood. Lawmakers will reconvene at the statehouse january 12th. The deadline for flood victimso apply for federal aidid is rapidly approaching. You should know the last day to sign up for assistance for fema is january 4th at midnight. Now, the original deadline was november 30th. That date was extended to this monday. Survivors can ask fema for help for renting temporary homes or even repairing their own. Were looking to those people that may have had some damage uninsured but theyre not sure if they qualify. The easiest way to do is register first and we can take a look at the documentation thats required later on. And according to the governors office, fema has public assistance and more than 165 million in assistance for individuals. As we begin the new year, some businesses in the midlands are getting off to fresh starts following the floods. Abc columbias jennifer ready tells us the story of one business happy to leave 2015 behind. Shannas pizza and pasta is back in business after october floods brought water levels up to here on this front post. All in all what we found when we got in here was probably two to three feet of water. Water from the creek submerged several feet of the restaurant, leaving the owner with a mess to clean up. Took all of our furnrture out and got it reupholstere and got the walls gutted and taken four feet on down and wound up with a situation where we used dehumidifiers to get rid of mold before we closed walls back up. The renovation process to get for the holidays, he said the community is what inspired him to keep going despite the floods devastation. We got in here and basically saw what we were dealing with and, you know, our neighborhood was full of people who were trying to help us and that just gave us more energy to keep going. Now open in time for the new year, theyre optimistic about the new begins 2016 will bring. Were trying to put 2015 behind us. We had some fond memories, but it didnt end up really, really well. So were regrouping and coming out to fight another day. Jennifer ready, abc columbia news. Well, the holidays have past, for College Students about government is in the giving spirit. Plus, South Carolina has a presence in this mornings rose parade. We hope youll stay with us. S. Much more. Abc columbia news 6 00 ahead live from main and gervais. Abc columbia news with ben hoover, Alicia Barnes, weather with chief meteorologist john farley and sports with tim hill. 6 00. Abc columbia is on the road. Listen to Alicia Barnes for morning news updates on 101. 3, the big dm. This program is brought to you in hd by timewarner cable. Whatever youre passionate about, we ancient ways to enjoy it even more. Timewarner cable, enjoy better. Iconic r b star nat coal has died at the age of 65. The grammy winner and daughter of the legendary Nat King Cole reportedly died in a los angeles hospital late last night. She underwent a successful her kidney problems dated back to 2008 when she was dying goffed withh hepatitisc. She contributed the illness to her addiction to cocaine. If you plan to attend college in 2016, the first thing you should do is fill outut your form. Today is the first day you can submit the nationwide College Financial aid form. The sooner you do, the better. You could miss out on scholarships or grant money if you wait. Students must submit the form to get any Financial Aid rewards. South carolina was represented in this mornings rose parade in pasadena, california. Did you see it . A floral portrait of midlands organ donor Sharon Schultz was feature on the donate life float this morning. The recipient of sharons lifesaving donation was also on that float of clemson. Up next, john farley has a look at your 7day forecast. Stay with us for more abc main and gervais. Live from main and gervais. Welcome back. And happy new year to you. In fact, lets start with a couple of numbers before we get to the forecast. Today, january 1st, we got to 66 degrees. Thats the first day in many where we actually dropped below 70. So lets take a look back at this past december, and it was warm. It was record warm. Here are the specifics on it. The average temperature, if you average out every hour over the above 60 degrees. Now, how does that compare . Well, the 30year average would be more like 46. 7. So this december came in, if you put every hour on top of each other and you averaged it all out, every hour was about 13 and a half degrees warmer than average. So that breaks the alltime record we have here by a good bit. So it was the warmest december on record here for columbia and just a few other stats that go with that here. Check that out. 18 days where it was greater than 69 degrees. It was at least 70, 18 days. It was above 74, meaning at least 75, 13 of those days. We got to 80 december 28th, just a couple of days ago. Now, preliminary numbers are in for thehole year. We have to update these as we go forward. Preliminarily this is how things looked. It was the warmest year, ties the warmest year. If you average out the hours over the whole year, its 65. Record for 2015 here in columbia. Again, these are preliminary numbers. It takes about a month or so for these to be finalized by the climate folks. Preliminary, yeah, looks like it will go down tied for the warmest here in columbia. In terms of whats going on out there tonight. Were much cooler than we were last night. Were in the 50s. If youre stepping out, its not going to cool off quickly. But as we go forward and the sky is clear, it will cool off and feel more like january. A few showers well east of us. Notice behind it theres a good deck of clouds. You see the back edge of this thing about at the appalachians . That will continue to purpose off to the east. If it does, theres a lot of clearing behind it. That will be here tomorrow morning. Once it gets here, it will be here for several days to come which will allow the temperatures to drop. So lets give you the specifics on the clearing. Here we go. We start at 7 00 tonight and watch. By the time we get to midnight, we have clouds in play. By the time we get tomorrow morning, its bright and sunny. Throughout the day, we have mid, in some cases, upper 50s. Winds coming out of the north. Czechoslovakia out the next several days and boy, could we use this. A lot of drying out. Looks like next week things will stay dry. I want to point out a pocket of cold air gets here, especially monday night to tuesday, tuesday night to wednesday. Daytime highs hovering around 50. Pretty cool for that little spell in there. Either side of that its not too bad. The good news on all of this is its dry for many days to come. Like the change. John, thank you very much. Bowl game makes the sec look very good. The other one goes the other way. Highlights on those for you. Clemson gets ready for a trip to stick around, sports is next. Seven years ago when i got this job, you know, i knew that its just a matter of when. Sweeney division sending clem ton so the National Championship game. Hi, im tim hill. Best new years eve for clemson and the celebration continues today after last nights orange bowl crushing of oklahoma. Miami continues to be good to clemson. The 1981 National Championship and last nights sending them to the National Championship game this year. A 3717 trouncing of oklahoma. More than 500 yards of total offense for the tigers for the 10th time this season. Five of the School Record going into this year. The perfect season. Now, 140 continues. Its our fourth bowl win in a row. More importantly, were 140. So, you know, its awesome to be in the National Championship, to represent, you know, the sec. Last three years, our conference has been in the National Championship game and hopefully we can, we can hold our end of the deal up. You know, its just a lot of fun, it reallyy is. Im just proud to be a part of it. We lost a lot of starters from both sides of the ball last year. Its amazing knowing youve got a Different Group of d line starting. And that game will be against alabama on january 11th at 8 30 on espn in glendale, arizona. Its acc versus sec. The clemson tide just crushing Michigan State in the cotton bowl out in arlington last night, doing it on special teams with Christian Jones and doing it on offense with jake cokier to calvin ridley. Should be a very interesting National Championship game matchup. Bowl games today. Today no different in tampa. Jon gruden on hand to watch tennessee and northwestern. Josh daubs and Company Giving the sec some bragging rights. No problem for him when it looked like it was a problem. It wasnt a problem for tennessee today. The best all season in eight years. Tennessee finishes the season 94. Other sec team in action today over in orlando. The citrus bowl. Gamecock fans plenty familiar with this in florida taking on michigan. Trickeration to underhand profession. Thats how florida ties this up in the first quarter. Its all jim harand the wolverines from here jim harbaugh says its michigans all day long. Florida ends up losing the last three games of the season. 417 todays final score. Mcelwains first year. Ohio state all over notre dame in the fiesta bowl 4428. Stanford up 280 in the Second Quarter of the rose bowl. A busy and fun time to be a football fan for sure. Exciting day in sports, absolutely. Up next, john haskins one last look at your 7day forecast. Stay with us with more abc columbia news at 6 00. Gervais. Heres the final check of the forecast for this evening and it is time to dry out. We have seven days here where things are going to be pretty dry for us. Temperatures will be running a little cool, certainly compared to what weve been used to. But these are more typical what we would expect for january. Notice the 20s monday and tuesday night of next week. Eric. Dry and cold. Youve been watching abc columbia news at 6 00. Thanks for making us your choice for news. Stay tuned for world news tonight with david muir. We would love to see you back here for your news at 11 00. The deadly cafe shooting and the