Current:Home > StocksClemson smacked by Georgia, showing Dabo Swinney's glory days are over-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
Clemson smacked by Georgia, showing Dabo Swinney's glory days are over
View Date:2024-12-23 18:33:26
ATLANTA – Georgia finished what the playoff selection committee started.
ACC football, you are fake news.
Clemson, that includes you.
Once upon a time, Dabo Swinney equipped little ol’ Clemson with zippy quarterbacks and dynamic wide receivers who’d beat Alabama and win national championships en route to the NFL.
Those days are finished.
These days, Clemson is Iowa, except the Hawkeyes have a better punter.
No. 1 Georgia smacked No. 14 Clemson 34-3 and left the Tigers for bones on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Georgia (1-0) performed like an unfinished product until accelerating after halftime. The Bulldogs were never in danger against an opponent that lacks the firepower it possessed years ago, when Swinney built a mini dynasty.
Clemson football needed transfers, but Dabo Swinney sat idle
Swinney vowed a decade ago that he’d exit college football if the athletes started getting paid. He didn’t make good on his pledge, but by treating the transfer portal like it carries leprosy, he’s quit assembling teams that compete with the elite.
By the time wide receiver Colbie Young supplied Georgia’s first touchdown on the opening drive of the third quarter, the game felt decided, despite the Bulldogs’ modest 13-0 lead. Clemson had proven it couldn’t move the ball.
Young, incidentally, is a transfer. Like other top programs, Georgia uses the portal to supplement blue-chip recruiting classes.
Locating a transfer at Clemson (0-1) is akin a snipe hunt.
UGA VS. CLEMSON:How Georgia football blew out Clemson: Score, analysis, highlights from game
Swinney didn’t add a single transfer in the offseason. The Tigers needed a receiver to penetrate Georgia’s defense – and a better quarterback to deliver the pass.
Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik just doesn’t have it, while Georgia’s Carson Beck is that dude.
Unlike Georgia’s offseason driving program, the Bulldogs creeped slowly out of the parking lot in this opener. Then cool-hand Carson put the game on ice with a blistering second half.
Nobody outperforms Beck on third downs. His third-and-10 bullet to London Humphreys keyed Georgia’s second third-quarter scoring drive.
Later, Beck needed 9 yards to move the chains on another third down. He found 40 yards and Humphreys for another touchdown.
Beck, who threw for 278 yards and two touchdowns, proved more precise than Klubnik. He also benefits from better receivers. Beck will miss the security blanket provided by All-America tight end Brock Bowers, but he’s forming a connection with Dillon Bell, Arian Smith and Dominic Lovett.
Beck added a wrinkle to his repertoire with a pair of slightly awkward – but effective – scramble runs for first downs.
Georgia needed Beck’s 297 yards of total offense, because Clemson’s defensive line played like a throwback to better days and bottled up Georgia’s running backs for most of the game.
Although Clemson delayed the rout until the second half, the Tigers would’ve needed to play 34 quarters to match Georgia’s 34 points.
Georgia rules, and Clemson left to contend for ACC's wilted playoff rose
While Clemson fantasizes fleeing the ACC’s coop in favor of a conference with a richer payday, I wonder: How would this iteration of Clemson hold up in the SEC?
I cried foul when the kangaroo court also known as the College Football Playoff selection committee spurned undefeated Florida State last December.
An unjust decision, I thought then. Unprecedented, certainly.
Georgia quieted the controversy weeks later by creaming the undermanned Seminoles in the Orange Bowl, but the ACC’s official date with humility arrived this season.
FSU melted into an Irish stew in Week 0. Then, Georgia made Swinney’s once-fierce Tigers look like a defanged husk of the dominant program it was.
Playoff expansion means Clemson retains CFP hopes. The conference race is wide open, and Clemson will contend for the ACC’s wilted rose to a playoff stint that’d surely be brief.
When these teams last met in 2021, Georgia was still ascending, and Clemson clung by its claws to the last vestiges of glory days.
Three years later, Georgia rules. NIL and transfers changed the sport. Swinney put his hands in pockets, and his Tigers are left standing in the dust.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's SEC Columnist. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
Subscribe to read all of his columns. Also, check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, and newsletter, SEC Unfiltered.
veryGood! (7)
Related
- Fantasy football buy low, sell high: 10 trade targets for Week 11
- How Paul Walker's Beautiful Bond With Daughter Meadow Walker Lives On
- Officers fatally shoot a reportedly suicidal man armed with a gun, police in Nebraska say
- ManningCast 2023 schedule on ESPN: 10 Monday night simulcasts during season
- Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul stirs debate: Is this a legitimate fight?
- When does 'Barbie' come out? Here's how to watch 2023's biggest movie at home
- Photos from Morocco earthquake zone show widespread devastation
- Kamala Harris says GOP claims that Democrats support abortion up until birth are mischaracterization
- Suspected shooter and four others are found dead in three Kansas homes, police say
- What does 'iykyk' mean? Get in on the joke and understand how to use this texting slang.
Ranking
- Satellite images and documents indicate China working on nuclear propulsion for new aircraft carrier
- Mexico’s former foreign minister threatens to leave party over candidate selection process
- US moves to advance prisoner swap deal with Iran and release $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds
- Aerosmith postpones 6 shows after Steven Tyler suffers vocal cord damage: 'Heartbroken'
- Dogecoin soars after Trump's Elon Musk announcement: What to know about the cryptocurrency
- ManningCast 2023 schedule on ESPN: 10 Monday night simulcasts during season
- Michigan State University football coach Mel Tucker denies sexually harassing Brenda Tracy
- Latvia and Estonia sign deal to buy German-made missile defense system
Recommendation
-
New Jersey will issue a drought warning after driest October ever and as wildfires rage
-
One peril facing job-hunters? Being ghosted
-
Stolen van Gogh painting worth millions recovered by Dutch art detective
-
Country singer-songwriter Charlie Robison dies at 59 after suffering cardiac arrest
-
Martha Stewart playfully pushes Drew Barrymore away in touchy interview
-
Mark Meadows requests emergency stay in Georgia election interference case
-
Explosion at ADM plant in Decatur, Illinois, hurts several workers
-
UAW president calls GM’s contract counteroffer ‘insulting’: What’s in it