Are the Georgia Bulldogs and the Clemson Tigers Still Rivals?
by T Kyle King on Aug 15, 2009 11:46 PM EDT
in Football
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PrintI know I shouldn’t let things like this get to me nearly as much as they do, but Dawg Sports recently received a link in this message board comment thread, which began when a Kentucky Wildcats fan, noting that EA Sports’ NCAA game had the Georgia Bulldogs and the Clemson Tigers listed as rivals, posted the following inquiry:
Since when are Georgia and Clemson rivals?
I was never aware of a rivalry between those schools and can't recall ever seeing them play each other.
Some knowledgeable Clemson and Georgia fans chimed in to clear up the questioner’s confusion, although a Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets supporter twice added his two cents’ worth, each time demonstrating the snide arrogance and complete ignorance we would expect from one of the Ramblin’ Wreck faithful when speaking of arguably his team’s two biggest current rivals:
It's not a rivalry. Period. They don't play each other any longer. Please look up stuff on google before you post. (do you see how dumb that sounds now?)
Tech was playing Bama, Tennessee, Auburn every year back in the day, that doesn't make it a rivalry today.
Your [sic.] welcome. . . .
Couldn't disagree more. For me personally, just because we started playing someone in the 1800's and had rivalries with them in the 40's doesn't make them a rivalry. I know college football, and I know the history between Clemson and Georgia. That being said, they're not rivals in the college football world any longer.
That's my opinion, if you're a fan and think that's a rivalry then more power to you I guess.
This kind of foolishness simply makes me crazy. The analogies employed by this particular Georgia Tech fan are as inapt as they are inept, as ought to be apparent to anyone who attended a liberal arts institution that taught critical thinking instead of a trade school that taught how to fix stuff.
The Engineers played the Alabama Crimson Tide, the Auburn Tigers, and the Tennessee Volunteers "back in the day" because Georgia Tech belonged to the Southeastern Conference, of which those perennial opponents also were members. When Bobby Dodd got his sanctimonious panties in a bunch and yanked the Golden Tornado out of the league abruptly, leaving the teams they were scheduled to face scrambling to fill the voids on their schedules, those conference rivalries faded away and have been renewed only rarely in the interim.
Georgia and Clemson ceased to be league foes when the Red and Black joined the SEC in 1933 while the Orange and Purple remained in the Southern Conference. The end of the series as a league game did not diminish the intensity of the rivalry, which grew by leaps and bounds as an out-of-conference clash.
In the mid-1940s, for the first time since 1916, the Bulldogs and the Tigers squared off four years in a row. Some spice was added to the rivalry in 1955, when the Fort Hill Felines beat the Classic City Canines for the first time since 1914, and the border foes met 24 times in the 26 seasons between 1962 and 1987. No rivalry in the country was more fiercely contested, and few were as consistently nationally significant, as the clashes between Georgia and Clemson from 1977 to 1987.
Accordingly, for the benefit of clueless fans like our friend from Georgia Tech who know as little about the rivalry between the Athenians and the South Carolinians as they know about the difference between your and you’re, here is a brief quiz that ought to illustrate the sheer idiocy of this message-board mouth-breather’s snotty and preposterous claim that no rivalry exists along the stretch of I-85 running from the Classic City to Lake Hartwell:
- Name the only team Clemson faced 20 times in the 20-year period from 1897 to 1916.
- Name the only team Georgia faced 20 times in the 20-year period from 1897 to 1916.
- Wally Butts’s 140 career wins at Georgia set a school record for coaching victories. Against which opponent did Vince Dooley claim his 141st triumph to break Coach Butts’s record?
- The Bulldogs ceased playing night games in Sanford Stadium in 1951 and did not host another evening contest between the hedges for more than 30 years. Against which opponent did Georgia resume the practice of playing night games in 1982?
- Name the only team Herschel Walker faced more than once in his collegiate career without scoring a touchdown.
- Clemson finished the 1978 season with only one loss. Name the only team to defeat the Tigers that year.
- Georgia lost only one regular-season game in the three years of Herschel Walker’s collegiate career. To whom did the Bulldogs lose that lone outing?
- Clemson finished the 1982 season with only one loss. Name the only team to defeat the Tigers that year.
- In each of the three years from 1980 to 1982, the winner of this rivalry game finished the regular season ranked No. 1. Name the series in which this occurred.
- Clemson finished the 1991 regular season with only one loss. Name the only team on the Tigers’ scheduled slate to defeat them that year.
- From 1977 to 1987, Georgia went 8-3 against Florida and 8-3 against Georgia Tech but 5-5-1 against another rival. Who was it?
- From 1977 to 1987, Clemson went 7-4 against N.C. State and 7-3-1 against South Carolina but 5-5-1 against another rival. Who was it?
- National championship-winning Tiger quarterback and 1982 Orange Bowl MVP Homer Jordan said one Clemson rivalry was "getting bigger than the South Carolina game." To which rival was he referring?
- National championship-winning Bulldog quarterback Buck Belue said Georgia fans and fans of a particular Georgia rival "don’t like each other." To which rival was he referring?
The answers, of course, are Georgia, Clemson, Clemson, Clemson, Clemson, Georgia, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia-Clemson, Georgia, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia, and Clemson, respectively.
I said it in 1995, I said it again in 2008, and I will continue to say it because it has been true since 1897 and remains true to this day: Georgia and Clemson are rivals. It’s why we’re renewing hostilities in 2013 and it’s why the Georgia Tech fan who presumed to speak about his rivals’ rivalries simply lacks adequate knowledge to comment intelligently about the Bulldogs’ best rivalry with an ACC opponent.
Go ‘Dawgs!
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Of course Clemson is our rival...
… but I can’t seem to come up with a witty or snarky remark about an ignorant nerd who provides yet another proof of John Gabriel’s Greater Internet (ahem) Jerk Theory. (Warning: the word used on the linked page is not “jerk.”)
In the absence of a witty remark, I’ll just leave this here.
Traditions:
Georgia: The Original Dawgwalk, Battle Hymn, Larry Munson, The Spell Georgia Cheer, Ringing the Chapel Bell, Winning.
Clemson: Rubbing a rock.
Despite knowing some fine people from Clemson — and looking longingly at the sign for Tiger Tails on more than one occasion — I have to say we have the leg up. But it is most certainly a rivalry.
Behold, this year's College Gameday Sign:
"Joe Cox -- He circumcises ANGELS!"
The greatest tradition in all of college football...
Are you actually using the spell Georgia cheer as proof of how great Georgia’s traditions are?
I love UGA and its traditions, but that one is worthy of as much derision as can possibly get thrown its way. When they have Tom Jackson call it “one of the greatest traditions in all of college football” I laugh. Every. Single. Time.
By the way, the Dawgwalk isn’t exactly very original.
by FisheriesDawg on Aug 16, 2009 8:28 AM EDT up reply actions
horrid though it may be...
I still contend its better than rubbing a rock.
Behold, this year's College Gameday Sign:
"Joe Cox -- He circumcises ANGELS!"
by RedCrake on Aug 16, 2009 1:39 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Traditions
Then I guess you’d have to include The Tiger Walk, Cadence count, Jim Phillips, Spelling out C-L-E-M-S-O-N, The cannon, The Hill, Military heritage, Winning (We’ve won a natty more recently than you have). Do you see how homerish that sounds when I put all that out there? It makes you look like a fool and that you’re the one who is uneducated about an opponent. Our schools have comparable tradition, so don’t haul off and claim high and mighty like most UGA homers do. Oh yeah, I think we both forgot one: Cheating.
T Kyle, great, great article as always man.
"the Bulldogs’ best rivalry with an ACC opponent...."
Are we implying that the Clemson rivalry is greater than the one with Yech? I’d have to disagree with that premise…
by get swoll yunel on Aug 16, 2009 5:53 AM EDT reply actions
I suspect that description and the fact that this was a response, of sorts, to a Trade-Schooler’s comment are linked, and the link afforded a bit of license. “Best” is a loose term, and for the purposes of this case only, I’ll defer to Kyle as fact-finder and note that there is at least some evidence to support the conclusion.
What are we… a bunch of lawyers, here? ;-)
by get swoll yunel on Aug 16, 2009 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions
NCT is right
Obviously, if you look at the whole history of Georgia football, Georgia Tech’s status as our in-state rival counts for quite a lot.
My point—-and I certainly was taking a jab at the Yellow Jacket fan who chimed in on the message board—-was that the Bulldogs are 33-12 against the Ramblin’ Wreck in the last 45 years, with three of the Golden Tornado’s wins coming in games in which the Engineers fielded ineligible athletes, and two of those three wins requiring clearly blown officiating calls for Georgia Tech to get the victory. Since the start of the Vince Dooley era, the ’Dawgs have posted one five-game winning streak, one six-game winning streak, and two seven-game winning streaks over the Yellow Jackets.
Between 1974 and 1990, Georgia went 7-7-1 against Clemson, and, since 1974, the Bulldogs only once have had a winning streak of longer than two games against the Tigers.
Georgia Tech is the more historic rival, though not by much. As far as the level of fear instilled by the prospect of playing our two great ACC rivals, though, it’s no contest: Death Valley scares me about eleventy billion times more than Divine Brown Stadium at historic Hugh Grant Field.
There hasn’t been a true “clash of the titans” between Georgia and Georgia Tech in my lifetime (the last one, such as it was, came in 1966), but there are multiple nationally significant Georgia-Clemson games in my conscious memory. I understand the historical background and respect why guys with NCT’s family ties take the Yellow Jackets more seriously than I do, but, frankly, there’s no rival we have with a more aptly chosen mascot . . . they’re more an annoyance than a threat.
Go 'Dawgs!
No problems, except
It would make me feel better if you removed the small jab at the GT poster’s grammar. I consider making unnecessary jabs at spelling errors to be a bit petty, especially in the non-formal context of a message board or comment thread. It’s probably not a big deal, but making explicit reference to a single (and common) grammatical mistake in an Internet discussion honestly seems like more of a “Tech” thing to do.
Leaving insightful football commentary and analysis to other people since 2006.
As much as it pains me (and it really, really does)
I have to agree. One need only stroll around this very site to find comments and fan posts from our own kind that are replete with such errors. Whether those errors are careless mistakes (I’ve made a few) or results of ignorance, they exist. I wish it were not so, but their it is.
I meant to do that.
Received and understood
Two points:
First of all, I don’t believe it’s a Georgia Tech thing to do, since the North Avenue Trade School doesn’t offer courses in English that don’t end with the words “as a second language,” but I take your point.
Secondly, I generally only break that out in situations (such as this one) in which an opposing commenter is lecturing others on how much smarter he is than they are. I find it helps to puncture pomposity. I don’t believe I’ve ever corrected the grammar or spelling of anyone who was making a reasonable point in a civil manner and merely made a typographical error.
Those, though, are explanations that may not suffice as excuses. I will bear your constructive criticisms in mind when debunking dufi in the future.
Go 'Dawgs!
Amen Kyle
I remember as a kid the Clemson game was the biggest one on the schedule and if I recall correctly was somewhere around Week 3 or 4 every year. I don’t think I have ever been as depressed as I was after the ’81 game where we lost 13-3 and Herschel had arguably his worst game in a Dawg uniform (of course I was only 10 at the time). I wish we could drop the Nerds and play Clemson every year instead.
Just look at baseball
Even though we can’t play Clemson every year in football, we do play them in a home and home in baseball every year. That game and the Tech game in Athens are arguably the biggest home games (particularly for the students) in any given season.
Pot/Kettle
It seems a bit dishonest to hold up one Georgia Tech fan, ignorant of the past, as an example. The lack of knowledge of football history is apparent across all teams. (Since the messaged quoted say nothing about Georgia Tech, your inclusion of the fact that the writer is a Tech fan does imply that you are making him an example.)
While none are as ignorant as Florida fans, who know nothing of what happened before Spurrier started coaching there, a great number of Georgia fans (present company excluded, of course) think Georgia’s football past started when Herschel Walker arrived in Athens. Otherwise they wouldn’t keep holding up current teams to “the good old days” when Georgia was a national power. These are the good old days for Georgia fans. They’ve never had a better coach, and the team has never been this successful.
Tech was playing Tennessee and Alabama well after they left the SEC. In fact, Tech was regularly playing them during the ’70s and early ’80s when Georgia was not. When Tech quit playing Auburn in the early ’80s (thank you Bill Curry and Homer Rice) that was the longest continuous rivalry in the South. (Please read all the words in that sentence before responding telling me I am wrong.)
If anything, I think Tech fans are better versed in history than Georgia fans. We’ve got to be; with a few exceptions, it’s what we’ve got to brag about.
Thanks for the civil tone and the valid points, CraigT
Please note that I said Georgia Tech’s SEC rivalries faded away, which I believe is a fair description of what happened over time . . . although you are correct that, during the Yellow Jackets’ time as an athletic independent, they continued to play many of their old SEC foes.
Thanks for dropping by, taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment, and doing your part to rebut the perception the message board commenter being lambasted in the posting above helps to perpetuate.
Go 'Dawgs!
I don’t think Tech’s SEC rivals so much faded as were intentionally dropped in favor of 1-AA schools that Bill Curry could, more often than not, beat.
Dropping Auburn was the hardest to take. Tech had played Auburn every year since 1906. Auburn students held a “Wreck Tech” parade every year. It was the oldest continuous annual game in the South. It was much better, though, that Curry get to play Wofford and Furman, so he’d at least have a chance to win, and demolishing part of the stadium made the crowds look better. (This is why I have a soft spot for Alabama; if not for them, Curry might still be at Tech.)
Thankfully Curry is a distant memory, except to those poor deluded students at Georgia State, and Tech is once again putting SEC teams on the schedule. We finish a home-and-home with Mississippi State this year and start one with Vanderbilt. We’ve got Auburn, Alabama, and Ole Miss coming up. Oh, and South Carolina, although I don’t really count them. We’ve got Tulane coming up, too, and they are more SEC to me than South Carolina is.
I like your thinking, CraigT
I’m curious about your “oldest continuous annual game” claim, though.
Auburn didn’t field a football team in 1943 due to World War II. Georgia didn’t field a football team in 1917 and 1918 due to World War I. Georgia Tech fielded teams in all three of those years. (I’ll steer clear of any arguments over asterisks in the record book or homecoming parade banners leading directly to a cessation of on-field hostilities.)
It seems to me we either should count breaks in rivalries brought about by dormant periods of football during wartime or we shouldn’t. If we count them, then Georgia’s current streak of playing Auburn annually began in 1944 and Georgia Tech’s most recent streak of playing Auburn annually also began in 1944. If we don’t count them, then Georgia played Auburn continuously (e.g., in years in which both fielded football teams) from 1898 to the present day and Georgia Tech played Auburn continuously from 1906 until the termination of the series.
You’re right that Auburn and Georgia Tech have a long history with one another and are legitimate longtime rivals—-greasing the train tracks and all that—-but, if you’re going to count 1917 and ‘18 against us, shouldn’t 1943 count against y’all, too? Regardless of whether your program shut down during wartime or the other guy’s did, shouldn’t a season with no series meeting count as a season with no series meeting?
Go 'Dawgs!
I was relying on the research of others, but I see that Auburn did not field a team in 1943, rather than fielding one and then retroactively pretending the games didn’t count when they didn’t like the results, as at least one other team did. I stand corrected.
In retrospect that banner was a good move for Georgia, since it allowed them to miss the best of the John Heisman teams and avoid a few triple digit losses. The lack of respect for soldiers who went to school to advance the American war effort is harder to understand.
It seems to me it was a bunch of college boys who thought that participating in combat was braver than staying home and going to school. The fact that there’s a major, monumental structure in the middle of campus commemorating those who were killed in WWI suggests that lack of respect for soldiers hasn’t been a problem in Athens. It’s a cool building. I’ll see if I can get you in to see the main rotunda sometime.
Memorial Hall is a "cool" building?
Memorial Hall is the architectural equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting.
The memorial to fallen soldiers is, of course, apropos and honorable, but I don’t care for the building itself.
by vineyarddawg on Aug 17, 2009 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions
I suppose "cool" is in the eye of the beholder
But yes, I like the building. The back of the building (which is what most people see in normal campus traffic, I guess), is a bit strange, especially since they added the elevator, but even in that I think someone did a very good job with the addition without trying to squeeze it in and pretend it had been there all along. From the Reed Quad side, though, I think it’s a great building (unpleasant memories of registering for classes there notwithstanding).
I was writing of the 1943 and 1944 games
In this article from the Banner-Herald (the sports page of which carried my birth announcement many years ago) the games are disputed, mostly by your friend Dan Magill, because members of the armed forces were enrolled at Tech at that time. That matches the explanation I have heard.
It’s clear that the Navy considered an education at Tech an important part of beating the Japanese in the Pacific. They apparently didn’t consider others schools as critical to the war effort.
These were Tech students, and no one except Dan Magill has ever suggested that they were in some way not eligible to play. Neither the SEC nor the NCAA ruled that there was anything inappropriate about these Tech students playing.
Many Tech players, including Clint Castleberry, who placed third in the 1943 Heisman voting as a freshman, also joined the military. Georgia did do well once Trippi returned, but Castleberry was lost in action, so we’ll never know what Tech would have been like with him back. Sinkwich was already gone from Georgia, having chosen to play in the NFL rather than join the military.
It seems to me that McGill’s main complaint is that Georgia lost those games 48-0 and 44-0.
Well, that's unfortunate
I accidentally logged on with the account name I thought I had deleted, since I had decided this was an inappropriate user name. Oh, well. Outed myself.
Not a problem
In any case, your larger point is valid; they were Georgia-Georgia Tech games, regardless of the peculiar circumstances created by the war. If it’s any consolation, there ought to be asterisks next to the 1998, 1999, and 2000 games—-in which the SEC (by suspending the officials who blew the Jasper Sanks “fumble” call) and the NCAA (by sanctioning Georgia Tech for fielding ineligible athletes) did declare there to be improprieties—-so, in the end, the Yellow Jackets come out one game better than they deserve in the record book.
As for the cessation of hostilities in the 1920s, I think it was just rivals being rivals. Insulting an opponent in your own homecoming parade certainly isn’t out of bounds, and it’s fair to claim that soldiers fighting in Europe are doing more for the war effort than folks back home, even if folks back home are doing plenty.
NCT, I’m with you on your memories of Memorial Hall. Wandering around with Scan-Tron sheets, golf pencils, and course list printouts on particle board, hoping to avoid the dreaded yellow card . . . shudder.
Go 'Dawgs!
Not quite . . .
. . . although I will grant CraigT’s premise that Georgia ought to count those games.
The argument (which I represent, but do not defend) is that these were not Georgia Tech students in the conventional sense. These were military trainees who were assigned to the Atlanta-based school for reasons having more to do with its location than the school itself. Meanwhile, Georgia returned no starters from 1942, all of whom were in the military. The only players for the 1943 and ‘44 Bulldogs were freshmen who were too young for the draft or students classified as 4-F. There’s a reason why the AP polls for those years feature schools that were used for military training or straight-up military outfits.
That said, Wally Butts coached the Georgia squad and Bill Alexander coached the Georgia Tech squad. Those two teams took the field wearing the uniforms of the schools they represented and attendees received tickets to Georgia-Georgia Tech games. We should count them, just like Florida should count the 1904 Georgia-Florida game. Certainly, Georgia would count those games had we won . . . although the media guide likely would be printed in German.
Go 'Dawgs!
Bob Davis' argument is flawed
In the article you wrote for the Banner-Herald, Bob Davis implies that with Trippi returning in ‘45 to beat Tech, it would place that game in question as well. It’s not the same thing to field a team without players that should be there as it is to field a team with players that should not (the debated premise of this whole argument) be there.
I agree with Kyle. We both fielded teams. No mistake was made that it was Georgia and Georgia Tech playing in those games, and a winner was produced in each year as a result of those games being played. I am simply pointing out the flaw in Davis’ implication that Trippi’s return in ‘45 should call that game into question. As I read the article more closely, Davis’ implication is made by yourself, more than him. Either way, it’s not the same thing.
by marktheshark on Aug 18, 2009 3:55 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm not sure where you got that
There was no implication that Trippi’s return to Georgia meant anything. There was an implication that the 1945 game may have turned out differently had Clint Castleberry returned to Tech. He didn’t because he gave his life serving his country.
With all due respect to Mr. Castleberry . . .
. . . whose service and sacrifice earn him our admiration and gratitude, partisan affiliations notwithstanding, that is a slender reed upon which to rest any such argument, for two reasons:
1. Georgia opened the 1945 season with a 4-0 run in the weeks preceding Charley Trippi’s return to campus. Only one of those games was close. Because Wally Butts had switched offenses after Trippi’s departure at the end of the 1942 season, it took him two games to get acclimated, and the Bulldogs lost both of those games. Trippi hardly had an immediate positive impact upon the team if, in the first four games (without him), the Red and Black went 4-0 by a combined 144-27 margin, only to go 0-2 and fall by a combined 60-14 margin immediately after he came back.
2. In 1945, Georgia beat Georgia Tech by a 33-0 margin at historic Grant Field. Clint Castleberry was a fine man and an outstanding football player, but it is more than a bit of a stretch to suggest that his absence accounted for a swing of 34 or more points in an outing against a Bulldog squad then in the early stages of what remains to this day the longest winning streak in school history.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Aug 23, 2009 12:44 AM EDT up reply actions
In a perfect world...
Clemson would be a member of the SEC East…and South Carolina would return to the ACC (because, at the minimum, Columbia is geographically closer to the COAST than Clemson is…)
Don’t get me wrong…our rivalry with the ’cocks is a good one. i grew up a Georgia fan in the ’70s…attended UGA from ’80-85 (the 5.5 year plan)…there was no better rivalry going. I specifically remember an article in the now defunct “Sport” magazine that listed the UGA-Clemson rivalry as a “top 5”. I wish we played ’em every year.
"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-Ben Franklin
Yes, absolutely
In fact, I am all for replacing the turncoat bluebelly Wildcats of the North with those pitiful felines across Hartwell. I think I am veering off subject, but UGA and Clemson not playing on a very regular basis is a crime.
Prior to columbia’s entry into the SEC, didn’t we used to alternate home and home’s between Clemson and SC?
by MikeInValdosta on Aug 16, 2009 10:02 AM EDT reply actions
Actually ...
We played both South Carolina and Clemson in the 1962-64, 1967-71, and 1974-87 seasons. I didn’t look back any earlier. Several of those early years saw us playing both games in South Carolina or in Athens, but from 1974 forward, one would be home and the other in the Palmetto State.
As an aside, one might note that all of those games were non-conference games. UGA has gotten criticized for not travelling outside the conference, but when we had three traditional non-conference rivals in Columbia, Clemson, and Atlanta, tradition trumped travel. I’m pleased to see us going to other parts of the country, but the rap on Georgia’s declining to travel until recently is at least partly a bum one (especially when coupled with the pre-Dooley globe-trotting).
You are correct, sir
Clemson, Georgia Tech, and South Carolina were Georgia’s perennial out-of-conference rivals. When the SEC upped the number of conference games from six to seven starting in 1988, there wasn’t room on an 11-game schedule for three non-conference rivals (practically, not literally, lest any Georgia Tech fans happen by to criticize my math).
Since we have played Georgia Tech every year since the 1920s, we couldn’t very well drop our in-state rival, so we began alternating between our Palmetto State rivals, playing South Carolina in 1988 (in Columbia) and 1989 (in Athens), then Clemson in 1990 (in Clemson) and 1991 (in Athens). When SEC expansion brought the Gamecocks into the league effective in 1992 and increased the conference slate to eight games, Georgia fulfilled its existing contract with the Tigers (which called for games in 1994 and 1995, originally with the expectation that South Carolina would be a non-conference game in 1992 and 1993) but did not renew the series until the 12-game schedules in 2002 and 2003.
Go 'Dawgs!
Okay...
You guys boot Kentucky and grab Clemson, we pick them up (they’ve got a nice rivalry with Louisville, and the ‘cats really ought to be in a conference that actually cares about basketball — occasional displays of competence in Gainesville or Fayetteville or by ladies in Athens notwithstanding) and snatch BC back (which clearly belongs with us in the Big East anyway). That gets us and the ACC with ten teams (good for the ACC, as they don’t need to stage a conference championship game no one goes to, and good for us as now we can split off from the non-football schools). Works nicely (it’d be even better if I could find some way to ditch USF and add Penn State without consigning the Bulls to mid-major land or creating an ackward 11 or 13 team conference; though I suppose we could dump them on the ACC and they could add UCF or ECU to get back to 12). Now all we need to do is come up with the cash to make Kentucky and BC go for it.
Well ...
… until the 2007 Florida game, I have always counted Georgia’s 27-12 win over Clemson in 1991 as the most satisfying win I’ve ever been a part of. Clemson had a firm grip on that rivalry from the early 1980s on, and that upset victory – given Clemson’s top-ranked defense and the Tigers’ No. 6 national ranking – ranked as my best sports moment for quite some time.
Until the Red Sox beating the Yankees in 2004 and ‘The Celebration’ in 2007, of course.
It is as much a rivalry as UGA/Scu
We have totally dominated both series.
A 41-17-4 record is more indicative of a hammer and nail than a rivalry.
I think calling Clemson a UGA rival is giving the Tigers way, way too much credit.
Our historical winning percentage against them is in line with Vandy and Kentucky.
I know that if 1978-85 were your formative years as a UGA fan, it is hard to get the memories of those UGA/CU classics out of your head.
But just as Gtu’s success in the late 90’s is totally moot because they were playing a QB who should have been ineligible, CU was cheating their asses off in the only 5 year period of sustained success in their history.
UGA/CU is as much a rivalry as UGA/Scu, UGA/UK or UGA/Vandy.
We have bigger fish to fry.
I wouldn't go that far
South Carolina has never held a winning streak of longer than two in a row against Georgia. The same holds true for Kentucky.
Vanderbilt dominated Georgia in the early years, going 13-7-1 against the Red and Black from 1893 to 1958, but the ’Dawgs have owned the ’Dores ever since, posting a 42-5-1 ledger over Vandy since 1959.
Even though Georgia had the upper hand in the rivalry with Clemson for many years, going 12-0-1 against the Tigers from 1915 to 1954, John Heisman’s Fort Hill Felines put together a seven-year winning streak over the Red and Black in the early 1900s, and no coach except Pat Dye gave Vince Dooley more fits in the 1980s than Danny Ford.
Cheating or no cheating, the Georgia-Clemson battles of the ‘70s and ’80s were epic. The same cannot be said for the Bulldogs’ clashes with Kentucky, South Carolina, or Vanderbilt.
Go 'Dawgs!
It's a historic rivalry..
But not a current one. And it won’t likely be again until/unless major conference re-alignment occurs.
Confession time.
I’m prepared to get blasted out of the forums for this comment, but here goes. I grew up in the 80s (born in 1980, so maybe I grew up in the 90s; whatever), so I know that the Dawgs and the Tigers were/are fierce rivals with some heavily contested ballgames between the two. I even remember “breaking up” with a girl in second or third grade (we weren’t even “going out”) because she wore a Clemson sweatshirt to school one day. Even then, I deemed a fan of a rival unworthy of my Bulldog blood; and, no, there isn’t some romantic ending to that story. I am not married to a Bulldog, and we’ll raise Bulldog children. I digress.
Over the years I have certainly romanticized our rivalry with Clemson. At times I’ll even find that I am CHEERING for Clemson no matter their opponent but especially if it’s Tech. I guess I’ve just started to view the historical nature of the rivalry like it’s about one of my uncles or far-off cousins who I wish no ill towards, but I certainly like for my own kind to get the better of him when head to head.
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