Georgia football: Can the Bulldogs revive their rivalry with Clemson?

For almost 100 years, Clemson was one of Georgia’s biggest rivals. Since 1991, the Bulldogs and Tigers have only played each other six times.

Many older Georgia football fans remember a time when Clemson was Georgia’s biggest rival from the state of South Carolina. In fact, Clemson was one of Georgia’s biggest rivals behind Auburn and Georgia Tech, and behind Florida until the 1960’s.

The Bulldogs and Tigers have met 64 times, but only eight times since they halted the rivalry in 1987. From 1962-to-1987, Georgia and Clemson met all but twice. They played almost every year from 1897-to-1921. The only break was in 1917 and 1918 when both schools cancelled football because of World War I.

They met every so often until 1962, but never went more than a decade without meeting. Kind of like the way things are now. Since ending the annual meetings, Georgia and Clemson have played in four home-and-home series’. But if Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney had his way, Georgia and Clemson would renew their annual rivalry.

“Absolutely, I think it’d be great for both fan bases,” Swinney said. “I’ve said that for a long time. We’re going to play somebody like that every year. We go to Texas A&M this year, then they come to us. We played Auburn a bunch of times. So I think that would be great.”