ATLANTA – Georgia finished what the playoff selection committee started.
ACC football, you are fake news.
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.
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.
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 BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
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