Clemson football and Georgia Tech will be the last game of the Labor Day weekend when they kick off next Monday night.
That gives both teams an extra couple of days to prepare from their typical Saturday contest and the Tigers are pushing back their game-week routines back a couple of days to compensate.
While that may make for an interesting week 2, when the game is a mere 5 days after the opener, the part that caught my eye was the differences in the Georgia Tech program from a year ago.
There’ll be a new starting quarterback, Jahmyr Gibbs is now a Heisman candidate at Alabama, 10 or so players have departed and about a dozen, including two former Tigers, have transferred in.
There’s also a new offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach and offensive analyst.
Add all that to your typical turnover and you could have a very different team than the one that gave the Tigers fits in 2021.
Who that benefits is anybody’s guess.
The Yellow Jackets have won exactly three games in each of the three seasons under Geoff Collins, who was a candidate to be the first coach fired until Nebraska tried an ill-advised on-sides kick in Dublin last Saturday.
Gibbs, of course, is the biggest loss, personnel-wise, having averaged 5.2 yards per carry and gaining 746 yards on the ground, with 36 receptions and another 470 receiving.
A Monday game for Clemson football sets back pregame preparation two days, but the Tigers are facing a different looking Georgia Tech team in 2022
None of this, nor the Tigers putrid 2021 offense, has had much of an effect on the point spread though, as it opened at 19.5 and now sits at 21.5 at WynnBet.
To non-Clemson fans it probably doesn’t seem like a very interesting game and I get that, but to Clemson fans there’s so much to be interested in after last years less than stellar season, from D.J. Uiagalelei to the offensive line, wide receivers and that theoretically special defense.
What do we get from Georgia Tech on the other side? No one really knows, but I would expect the unexpected from Tech as desperate times call for desperate measures.
Who knows, they may even lift weights on the sidelines because that worked so well last time they tried it.