UGA football: Revival of the Georgia, Clemson rivalry for the new era of college football

UGA football is slated to play the Clemson Tigers six times between 2021 and 2033. Both schools are constantly communicating about other potential meetings.

The Clemson Tigers are one of Georgia’s oldest and closest football rivals. The series simply formed out of proximity in 1897, but over the years it became one of the south’s most important rivalry.

Despite UGA football owning a commanding lead in the series (42-18-4), when the Tigers are at their best, the rivalry is super-competitive. From 1973-to-1991, Georgia won just nine of the 17 games played. Both programs captured National Championships during this stretch and combined to win 11 conference championships.

What really made the Georgia-Clemson Rivalry special was proximity. Less than 80 miles separate UGA from Clemson. Both schools are less than an hour from the Georgia/South Carolina state line making the rivalry a “border war” in the truest sense. Clemson fans are common throughout northeast Georgia, just as Georgia fans are common in the western portion of South Carolina.

However, by the 1990s, proximity wasn’t enough to sustain a rivalry. Changes to the college football landscape placed a much higher emphasis on conference games, especially in the SEC. Through the 1970s and 80s, SEC teams only played six conference games. Having five non-conference games meant Georgia always had a spot on its schedule for Clemson.

But in 1988, the SEC bumped the number conference games up to seven and the number increased to eight when South Carolina and Arkansas joined the SEC in 1992. With eight of 11 regular season slots filled by SEC teams, Georgia couldn’t maintain two annual non-conference rivalries. The Georgia-South Carolina series became more important and a new rivalry with Tennessee formed, while the Clemson series was thrown by the wayside.