First look at Clemson

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“You’re either elite or you’re not.” Those words Kirby Smart spoke after the last time the Dawgs and the Greater Anderson Cow College Tigers met in Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium have proven prophetic. Clemson is 30-9 in the Almost Competitive Conference, and Georgia is 42-2 with 2 national championships. These two renew acquaintances at high noon Saturday in Mercedes Benz Stadium with expected roles flipped with Georgia on top of the college football world and Clemson looking for a big win to show they are back.

Series Record: Georgia leads 43-18-4 and holds a current 2 game winning streak.

Last Meeting: The Dawgs opened the 2021 season as an underdog (I believe it’s the last game the Red & Black has entered as a point spread underdog) against Clemson in a game where the only TD was a defensive score by Chris Smith. The Tigers’ offense wilted under the constant pressure applied by the Georgia defense, and the Georgia offensive line finished off the game with a long drive to finish off the 10-3 victory in the Queen City.

Gambling Degenerate Facts: Georgia is +13.5 and -600 straight-up win favorite with a total at 48.5.

Interesting Statistic: Clemson Red Zone Conversion Rate – Offense 73.3% Defense 82.8%

Those numbers look rather pedestrian. After looking at cfbstats.com for the home and away breakdown. The numbers were downright awful for a team with playoff ambitions. Clemson never got a red zone stop on the road (although our RZ defense performance wasn’t good at all as well across the board). The big difference is that our offense put up points on 91% of trips inside the red zone.

Early Outlook

My assumption right now is that Dabo wants this game to be played in a phone booth where the Tigers can shorten the game, keep the game close and try to win in the 4th quarter. If Clemson cannot prove they can run the football with some level of consistency, I don’t see a path to victory as the Georgia boa constrictor defense chokes the life out of the Tiger offense and the Clemson defense finally breaks. Clemson has some dudes on defense, and if they can get the Georgia offense behind the chains, they can cause problems.

I think this game eventually comes down to line of scrimmage play, and while Clemson is really sound on the defensive line, the Georgia offensive line appears to be much better than the Tigers’ offensive line. I’m torn on whether the Dawgs cover because of the Clemson defense, but I think we walk out of MBS with our first victory of many over a ranked opponent for the season.

Where are you currently on the game? Let us know in the comments.

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About eethomaswfnc

I've been a Dawg my entire life. UGA was always my dream school where I received 2 Terry College degrees and met my DGD wife. I've been a season ticket holder for over 30 years and love the in-stadium experience over anything from Section HD. My first game in Sanford Stadium was the 1981 Auburn game where we clinched the SEC championship. The best game I've attended in person was the Midnight Miss against Ohio State (nite, nite!). The best home games I've attended were the 1984 Clemson game (the Butler did it) and the 2013 LSU game (that 4th down is still the loudest single moment I've experienced between the hedges). The game I love to win is against the Handbags (FTMF), and the game I hate to lose is the NATS (Tuck Fech).

26 thoughts on “First look at Clemson”

  1. Nobody seems to think the Sons of Clem are going to win. I’m not a Munsoner so that doesn’t scare me but it is odd that at least a few people haven’t acted like we better watch out.

    • In the spirit of this week’s Lexiconality (And I believe a comment from you, MC):

      “Beyond Crompton (adj.) – 1. the measurement of a truly incompetent performance by a team, unit, or individual. 2. a completely out-of-nowhere superlative performance by a team, unit or individual who until then had given no indication of such capability. (h/t David Hale)

      Anytime The Dawg’s take the field against a D1 rival, especially ones wearing baby-shit orange uniforms there is a bit of sphincter tightening for me. Fortunately there’s alcohol and Kirby Smart to help with that.

      I’ll say this: My late good friend RangerRuss hated clemson with a passion reserved for child molesters, lollygaggers, and trespassers. Kick their ass for RR, Kirby… and Blutarsky.

      #fuckthoseorangewearingmotherfuckers

      • Channeling your inner RR this morning I see.

        By the way, I corrected the son in law on his dates. Thats twice I have caught him not reading the regs. That cost him a big donkey doe last season.

  2. Most people realize that the ultimate intangible is that Dabo doesn’t have what it takes to go head to head with Kirby. UGA wins “and” covers the spread.

  3. I don’t think the Dawgs OL vs Tigers DL is that much of a mismatch. They’ve got at least 2 all-conference guys on their roster with talented young guys coming up. Good LBs as well. It’s not going to be easy unless Brandon is truly 100%. Their secondary has some holes I expect Carson and Lovett to exploit, though. And that could open things up more for the OL. Klubnik is such a great example of how difficult it is to predict QB success. He was our local QB here and was the best HS QB I’ve ever seen in person, but things just haven’t clicked for him to raise the level of his game. They finally have some good young WRs, but I doubt they’re ready to put much pressure on our DBs. I like the Dawgs by at least 10.

    • I totally agree on their defensive line. I do believe that’s strength on strength. The question is whether their offensive line can block our guys.

    • I also think our OL v their DL is the key to the game. If I’m being super picky, I sometimes don’t like the way it takes our OL some time to get going. If our uglies can come out of the gate hard, I think we can beat the shit out of Clemson.

    • I expect Klubnik to be better with a second year in a system and an second full offseason with Garrett Riley. Not saying that he’ll be Trevor or Deshaun, but I do expect him to be better, more relaxed, and in control of the offense. Whether that happens against Georgia’s defense remains to be seen, but I think his 2024 campaign will be markedly improved over 2023.

      I wouldn’t lay the points were I betting this game. And I would lean towards the under as well. Mainly because if Kirby can get a lead I think he’ll shorten the game and try to strangle Clemson.

  5. I’m nervous because we’ve invited one of my son’s friends over to watch. The kid is big cryer (not a problem, normally) and his grand dad played at Clemson. I’m nervous that this little shit is gonna lose it after ever time I bark uncontrollably at the TV.

  7. The Sons of Clem’s front seven is good from what I gather so to me what we see is dependent on two things that are hooked together. How does our offensive line perform and what that will determine as far as play calling. If the line has trouble with their front seven that might cause us to go into a shell offensively and cause us to all see the dreaded “staying vanilla”. That will be frustrating to people to watch and also plays into what Dat Boy wants as far as dragging us into a rock fight. That’s his most likely path to victory. Let’s do t give him what he wants.

  8. I think this will probably be one of those games that is a closer than it ought to be for three quarters, perhaps a tad more. Dawgs pull away late to win by 10 to 14 points. I anticipate Georgia will start slow and make some unforced errors early. Once they work up a good sweat, the Dawgs will start to methodically grind Dabo’s team down. We have better depth and Clemson won’t be able to deny us late in the game. In other words, a fairly typical early season win against what appears to be a pretty decent team.

  9. The last time we faced a Garrett Riley coached offense, they were not very successful. I expect our defense to do their thing and the offense will be a little rusty out of the gates. Dawgs win by 10 thanks to a late garbage time score by climpson to make it look closer.

  10. Lots of Munsoning going on here… We are a 13.5 point favorite over a team that went 4-4 in the weak ACC last year. (see FSU was undefeated). We have Heisman candidate throwing a suspect secondary, the best coach in college football getting our team ready.

    This smells like roasted Oregon duck

    • Mmmm, roasted duck sounds good right about now. I don’t foresee 7 TDs in first 7 possessions, but a solid win will do to start us off. Clemson’s front 7 is much better than Oregon’s 2022 D, which will present some impediments. We’ll punt 5 or 6 times is my guess. I’m not sure our somewhat untested receiving corps & running game will have us on anything resembling cruise control. I would like to see Lovett have a big game to start a big season for hisself. I do not think we’ll cover the +13.5 in this case, but won’t be surprised if we do. Dawgs win by 10 or 12 and they still give us plenty to talk about next week. 🙂

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