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    • Clemson, Dabo Swinney Takes Hits From Georgia As ACC Is Exposed Again
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    Clemson, Dabo Swinney Takes Hits From Georgia As ACC Is Exposed Again

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    ATLANTA – Georgia finished what the playoff selection committee started.

    ACC football, you guys are fake news.

    Clemson, you belong there too.

    Once upon a time, Dabo Swinney supplied little Clemson with speedy quarterbacks and dynamic wide receivers who beat Alabama and won national championships en route to the NFL.

    Those days are over.

    Today, Clemson is Iowa, only the Hawkeyes have a better punter.

    No. 1 Georgia defeated No. 14 Clemson 34-3 to leave the Tigers empty-handed Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

    Georgia (1-0) played like an unfinished product until they picked up speed after halftime. The Bulldogs never looked in danger against an opponent that lacks the firepower they had years ago, when Swinney built a mini-dynasty.

    Clemson football needed transfers, but Dabo Swinney was out of work

    Swinney vowed a decade ago that he would leave college football if the athletes got paid. He hasn’t kept his promise, but by treating the transfer portal like a leprosy epidemic, he’s stopped building teams that can compete with the elite.

    By the time wide receiver Colbie Young delivered 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, by the way, is a transfer. Like other top programs, Georgia is using the portal to supplement blue-chip recruiting classes.

    Finding a transfer at Clemson (0-1) is a bit of a snipe hunt.

    UGA VS CLEMSON: How Georgia Football Beat Clemson: Score, Analysis, Game Highlights

    Swinney didn’t add a single transfer in the offseason. The Tigers needed a receiver to break down Georgia’s defense — and a better quarterback to deliver the pass.

    Clemson’s quarterback Cade Klubnik just doesn’t have that, while Georgia’s Carson Beck does.

    In contrast to Georgia’s offseason driving program, the Bulldogs crept slowly out of the parking lot in this opener, before a cool-headed Carson put the game on ice with a blistering second half.

    Nobody tops Beck on third downs. His third-and-10 bullet to London Humphreys was the key to Georgia’s second third-quarter scoring drive.

    Later, Beck needed 9 yards to move the chains on another third down, finding 40 yards and Humphreys for another touchdown.

    Beck, who threw for 278 yards and two touchdowns, proved more accurate than Klubnik. He also benefits from better receivers. Beck will miss the safety blanket of All-America tight end Brock Bowers, but he forms a connection with Dillon Bell, Arian Smith and Dominic Lovett.

    Beck added a new dimension to his repertoire with a pair of somewhat awkward – but effective – scramble runs for first downs.

    Georgia needed Beck’s 297 total yards as Clemson’s defensive line played like it was harking back to better days and held Georgia’s running backs in check for most of the game.

    Although Clemson delayed the loss until the second half, the Tigers would have had to play 34 quarters to match Georgia’s 34 points.

    Georgia reigns supreme, leaving Clemson to battle for faded ACC playoff spot

    As Clemson fantasizes about leaving the ACC in favor of a conference with a higher pay grade, I wonder: How would this version of Clemson fare in the SEC?

    I berated myself when the kangaroo court, otherwise known as the College Football Playoff selection committee, rejected undefeated Florida State last December.

    An unfair decision, I thought then. Unprecedented, certainly.

    Georgia calmed the controversy a few weeks later by beating the short-handed Seminoles in the Orange Bowl, but the ACC’s official date for this season had arrived with modesty.

    FSU melted into an Irish stew in Week 0. Then Georgia made Swinney’s once-fierce Tigers look like a butchered husk of the dominant program they were.

    Playoff expansion means Clemson retains its CFP hopes. The conference race is wide open, and Clemson will be battling to keep the ACC’s fading rose in a playoff run that will surely be short.

    When these teams last met in 2021, Georgia was still on the rise and Clemson was clinging to the last remnants of its glory days.

    Three years later, Georgia reigns supreme. NIL and transfers have changed the game. Swinney has put his hands in his pockets and his Tigers are left in the dust.

    Blake Toppmeyer is the SEC columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

    Subscribe to read all his columns. Also check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, and newsletter, SEC Unfiltered.

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