Clemson vs Georgia Tech: A Tale of Two Cities
The Clemson vs Georgia Tech game features two programs that started in the same direction and are now trending two very different ways.
The Clemson vs Georgia Tech match up features two football programs that had the same hopes, dreams, and aspirations coming into the season and now are going in two separate directions.
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Clemson has started the season off 4-0 and with a win over Notre Dame Saturday, put themselves in a situation to be in the College Football Playoff. As a matter of fact, the Tigers now control their own destiny into the College Football Playoff as all they have to do now is win. Eight regular season games and an ACC Championship game stand in their way of getting a College Football Playoff berth.
What is the next obstacle in the Tigers’ way? The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
Georgia Tech had College Football Playoff aspirations coming into this season. The Yellow Jackets finished the 2014 season as one of the hottest teams in America and were looking to take that momentum into this season. After two games, the Yellow Jackets looked like the real deal. Georgia Tech completely dismantled Alcorn State by a score of 69-6 and then beat Tulane 65-10 the following week.
After those two wins, the Ramblin’ Wreck sat atop many ACC Power Rankings and were the favorite, by many services, to not only win the Coastal Division, but to compete for the ACC Championship. What happened next, however, put the city of Atlanta, Georgia at a loss for words.
Georgia Tech traveled up to South Bend, Indiana as the favorite to win the game by many betting services and got beat pretty handily by Notre Dame. Now, the Yellow Jackets did make the game look closer by scoring 15 points in the final minute of the game, but still came up 8 points short on the road.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the next week Georgia Tech got completely embarrassed by a Duke team who has struggled to score all season. The Blue Devils put up 34 on the ailing Yellow Jackets in what many considered to be the ACC Coastal Division Championship game.
The following week Georgia Tech got out to a huge lead over the North Carolina Tar Heels. Everything looked to be right again in Yellow Jacket nation before North Carolina used a 24 point second half to beat the Yellow Jackets by a touchdown.
Now, Georgia Tech, the team many picked to win the ACC Coastal sits at 2-3 on the season with an 0-2 record in ACC play. Many Clemson fans have begun to look over this game after the big win over Notre Dame, but I want to caution Tiger fans to be weary of this one.
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This is “do or die” for Georgia Tech. They know that one more loss in the ACC will mean no chance at winning the Coastal Division. Paul Johnson will pull out all the stops for this game and will do whatever it takes for his team to win. As if defending that tricky option offense wasn’t already hard enough.
This is historically always been a close game. This rivalry has basically traded off home wins over the past 10 years. Clemson will need to come out firing on all cylinders in order to win this game.
Georgia Tech is not what their record has shown and it could just as easily been them sitting at 5-0 coming into this game. Clemson needs to prepare for a hard fought game and remember that the Tale of Two Cities can change in the blink of an eye. It’s time for the Tigers to show up and keep their own fate alive knowing all the while that the Yellow Jackets will be prepared for war.
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