GAME SNAPSHOT
KICKOFF: Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET
SITE: Bobby Dodd Stadium, Atlanta, Ga.
TV: ABC
SERIES: Georgia Tech leads 50-30-2. Clemson won the last meeting 24-10 in 2017.
RANKINGS: Clemson No. 3
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Tigers
–QB Trevor Lawrence is a Georgia native who starred at Cartersville High School about 45 minutes from Atlanta and will have plenty of friends and family on hand for his return to his home state. “It definitely adds some excitement,” Lawrence said. “And I’m feeling more comfortable. They’ve done a good job of playing me in important situations, so I feel like I’m prepared.”
–RB Travis Etienne finally received the lion’s share of carries last week and responded with a career-high 162 yards and two touchdowns. He is averaging 7.7 yards per carry this season and will be looking to build on that early success against a Georgia Tech defense that has proven rather porous in losses to South Florida and Pittsburgh. “He just sneaks up on you,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said of Etienne. “He’s a special talent. If he touches it enough, something good is going to happen.”
–WR Justyn Ross may be a freshman, but he’s playing like an elder statesman. Ross, who at 6-foot-4 provides a big target, scored his second touchdown of the season last week on a 57-yard catch-and-run and wound up with 103 receiving yards on only three receptions. The top receiver in Alabama as a high school senior, Ross already is flashing his big-play potential and reminds coaches of former star Mike Williams.
–LB Isaiah Simmons has moved into a starting role at the nickel position following the graduation of Dorian O’Daniel, who always had his best games against Georgia Tech. Simmons, a 6-2, 230-pound sophomore, is equipped to pick up where O’Daniel left off. “He brings a lot of the same attributes as Dorian,” Swinney said. “He’s just longer, bigger and probably a better cover guy when it’s all said and done. He’s a very dynamic guy, he’s physical. He can do whatever we need him to do.”
Yellow Jackets
–QB TaQuon Marshall continues to baffle with his inconsistencies. He dialed up a big second half against Pitt (75 of his 103 yards rushing came in the second half) but he continues to struggle to make the right decision to pitch or keep and his passing remains questionable. He is No. 4 in rushing in the ACC with 293 yards on 50 carries.
–FB Jordan Mason, now the full-time starter due to KirVonte Benson’s season-ending injury, rushed for 94 yards on 10 carries. The redshirt sophomore has 34 attempts for 270 yards and one touchdown. Mason has shown the ability to hammer through the line, but doesn’t have the speed to finish the long drive with the same skill as Benson.
–CB Tariq Carpenter bounced back from an early ejection against South Florida to share the team lead with five tackles against Pitt. Carpenter also had a tackle for loss. The redshirt sophomore has adjusted well to the team’s new 3-4 defense. He is filling in well at the spot left vacated by the graduation of senior Corey Griffin.
–FS Malik Rivera intercepted his first pass with the Yellow Jackets. He continues to be a consistent, steady force in the young secondary. Rivera is the only upperclassman among the top nine players on the team’s depth chart in the defensive backfield.
KEYS
TO THE GAME
Georgia Tech may be hoping for a little inspiration when it pays homage to the 1990 Yellow Jackets who earned a share of the 1990 college football title when No. 3 Clemson visits Saturday.
Kickoff on AB C is at 3:30 p.m. ET at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta.
The unranked Yellow Jackets (1-2, 0-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) may need all the help they can get against the third-ranked Tigers (3-0, 0-0 ACC).
“They’re a talented team,” Tech coach Paul Johnson said. “They might be the most talented team we’ve played since I’ve been here.”
That is saying something. Two years ago the Yellow Jackets played 2016 national champion Clemson and last year faced 2017 runner-up Georgia. Not surprisingly, the Tigers have been installed as 16.5-point favorites, making this Tech team the biggest underdog since Johnson arrived at the school 11 seasons ago.
Clemson has dominated the series in recent years, winning the last three meetings and five of the last six. But the schools apparently can’t agree on the series record. Tech claims only a 50-30-2 lead. Clemson give Tech a 51-30-2 advantage.
What’s for sure is that Tech’s last win came in 2014 when Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson blew out his knee in the first half.
Clemson won 26-7 last season on a rainy day in Death Valley. The Yellow Jackets fumbled on their first series to set up a Tigers touchdown. After the Jackets got a field goal late in the first quarter, the Tigers scored 17 straight points and put the game away.
Clemson has had less trouble than most opponents when it comes to defending Georgia Tech’s triple-option attack. Last year Georgia Tech rushed for only 198 yards against the Tigers, their second-lowest total of the year (they had 188 against Georgia).
And Tech will be without its most successful runner from last year, with B-back KirVonte Benson, out with a knee injury. He has 16 carries for 129 yards this season.
“We’ve played Clemson for a long time now,” Johnson said. “They’ve got a pretty good idea of what we’re going to do. They’re a talented team.”
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said he knew little about defending a triple-option team when he landed the job with the Tigers in the middle of the 2008 season.
“I’d never been around the triple option not a day in my life,” Swinney said. “I grew up in the I Formation. I get the Clemson job on a Monday and … oh, by the way, we’re playing a triple-option team on Saturday. It’s Paul Johnson’s first year. Nobody knows anything about it.”
Georgia Tech ran for 207 yards that day and beat Clemson 21-17. Swinney has been prepared for the triple option ever since.
“I learned real quick that if we’re going to have a chance, we’re going to have to make this a part of what we do,” Swinney said. “If you don’t, you’re going to be behind the eight ball.”
Clemson began to devote time to defending the triple option during the spring and fall. The Tigers set aside time to work against the offense in practice, even on weeks when they weren’t playing Tech, taking the same approach by Georgia and Pittsburgh, which beat the Yellow Jackets last week in the ACC opener.
“Those little 5-, 10-minute periods going a long way in the grand scheme of things,” defensive end Austin Bryant said. “So I’d definitely say that helped a lot.”
It also helps that Clemson has some talented defensive players. Bryant, Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence and Clelin Ferrell were all named preseason All-ACC.
“They’ve got three or four guys who could first-round draft picks,” Johnson said.
Last week Clemson beat another triple option team, Georgia Southern 38-7, and allowed the Eagles to gain only 140 yards, 80 of that on the ground.
“At one time Georgia Southern had run 30 plays and had 39 yards,” Johnson said. “They had one first down in the first half.”
