Clemson football: UGA keeping a tight lid on 2021 preseason camp

It’s been a tale of two different fall camps when looking at the differences between what we’ve seen so far with the Clemson football program compared with the Georgia Bulldogs.

Dabo Swinney gave the media complete availability to the first two Clemson football practices of the year this past weekend and the media has been welcomed for several more sessions throughout fall camp. Kirby Smart, on the other hand, has been keeping an extremely tight lid on his program.

Georgia has not allowed the photography and observations that we are getting from media members at Clemson. Instead, those media members who are covering the Bulldogs have had to rely solely upon provided images from Georgia and after-practice interviews.

Clemson football should be leery of Kirby Smart actually becoming ‘smart’

There have been plenty of moments during his tenure as Georgia’s head coach where we have been able to poke fun at Kirby Smart.

Everyone loves to look at how he handled the Justin Fields situation or point to games where the Bulldogs were clearly the better team but still lost, like to South Carolina against the Gamecocks’ third-string quarterback a couple of years ago.

That being said, there should still be at least a wariness from Clemson football when you look at the closed nature of Georgia football practices.

The one area that could be dangerous for the Tigers is if Georgia left its antiquated offensive system and vaulted into the 21st century. Though the Bulldogs have been one of the most talented teams in the country year-in and year-out, their coaching and systems have left them behind many other programs each season.

Could the reason be that Kirby Smart is keeping media availability to a minimum that the Bulldogs are getting ready to roll out a new offensive system? Could he want to keep as much on the ‘down-low’ to keep the Tigers in the dark and give them as many surprises as possible? It certainly seems possible.

Then again, that seems like giving him way too much credit.

In the end, we all know that these are two teams who are similar in talent. But, even if Smart is using this as a small advantage, we’d still give a major advantage to Dabo Swinney, Brent Venables and the continuity of that Clemson football coaching staff over what Athens has to offer.