Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney was disappointed following Clemson’s 34-3 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs in Week 1. Clemson is 0-1 for the third time in four seasons with two of those three losses coming in neutral site games against Georgia.
“First of all, congrats to Georgia,” Swinney said. “It was a good first half. Tough, hard-fought first half. Then they just freaking kicked our tails in the second half. Congrats to them. They’re a great team. They’ve been a great team. They showed in the third and fourth quarter what it looks like. … You got to play four quarters. We didn’t do that.”
Georgia outscored Clemson 28-3 in the second half. The Tigers played well defensively in the first half and trailed 6-0 at halftime. The second half was another story. Clemson had no answer after Georgia’s offense starting scoring touchdowns.
“Sometimes you get your butt kicked, and we did today,” said Swinney. “That’s not what we came here to do. But you got to give Georgia credit.”
Clemson’s 31-point loss in the Tigers’ largest defeat in over a decade. The last time Clemson lost by such a large margin was in 2013 when Florida State beat the Tigers, 51-14.
Swinney praised Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, who went 23 of 33 for 273 yards and two touchdowns. Beck had an efficient performance and showed improvement in extending plays.
“Another thing I was worried about was their quarterback (Carson Beck). I think he showed it,” Swinney said. “He’s a really, really good player. He’s incredibly accurate. That’s one of my concerns going into the game, was if we let him hold the ball on third-and-long, he’ll find ’em. And he did. He made a couple huge plays on third-and-long.”
Carson Beck is projected to be a No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL draft for a reason. Beck made quick decisions and threw accurate passes against a talented Clemson defense.
“Georgia is going to make a lot of people look bad. They made us look bad today,” Swinney said.
Georgia is outscoring its opponents, 141-16, over the Bulldogs’ past four season openers.
Swinney emphasized that it is just one game and that the Tigers need to regroup quickly ahead of Week 2.
“They didn’t hand out a national championship trophy tonight,” Swinney said. “We didn’t lose the ACC tonight. We got our butts kicked in one game, and we got a long way to go.”
